Early Monday morning, Canadian officials found themselves in a frantic race against time, battling a widespread system failure that had brought border inspection processes to a crawl. This significant tech outage at immigration kiosks led to hours of agonizing delays across some of Canada’s busiest airports, transforming what should have been smooth arrivals into scenes of frustration and uncertainty.
Travelers arriving in major Canadian cities on Sunday reported being trapped aboard their planes for extended periods. Once inside the terminals, they faced immense crowds, all patiently — or not so patiently — awaiting manual immigration checks. This chaos unfolded across key aviation hubs in Montreal, Toronto, and Calgary, all of which issued urgent advisories about the impending delays.
According to Luke Reimer, a spokesperson for the Canada Border Services Agency, the technical issue originated Sunday afternoon. It crippled the digital kiosks used for identity verification, which are essential tools at ten Canadian airports. Reimer attributed the breakdown to an “unforeseen technical issue” encountered during routine system maintenance. As of Monday morning, agency staff were diligently working to resolve the problem while simultaneously processing a deluge of travelers manually to keep things moving.
The full extent of the travel disruption remained somewhat murky. Canadian airline WestJet, for instance, informed passengers via social media that a Toronto airport had temporarily halted deplaning operations. This was a direct consequence of customs reaching maximum capacity following the kiosk shutdown. Attempts to get immediate updates from both WestJet and Toronto’s two primary airports—Toronto Pearson and Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport—were unsuccessful. Similarly, Montreal and Calgary airports, despite having alerted passengers to potential delays, offered no immediate specifics on how their operations were being affected. Even Air Canada, the nation’s largest carrier, remained silent on the unfolding situation early Monday.