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Posted: Tue, 23 May 2017 05:59:02 GMT

Chaos at Sydney Airport International Check-in after a passport processing system malfunction has brought Australian Airports to their knees. Picture: Clarissa Bye

THE company at the centre of a disruptive airport systems outage has confirmed the issue was not a cyber attack.

SITA, a global technology company that delivers airport passenger processing systems, said “the network connectivity issue resulted in systems provided for border control being disrupted for just under three hours”.

The issue meant airline check-in desks could not electronically scan customers’ passports to determine if they were valid, and had the relevant visas for their destination.

The outage was eventually pinpointed to a major telecom failure in the United Kingdom of a provider to SITA’s data centre.

“In response, we implemented an alternative communications link and resumed services,” said a statement from marketing manager June Lee.

“Our team continues to monitor the situation. We can confirm this incident was not due to a cyber attack.”

International flights out of Australia were thrown into chaos by the outage of what was described as the “electronic interface between airlines and the Department of Immigration and Border Protection”.

The issue meant passports could not be processed electronically — slowing down the check-in process.

Flights out of Sydney were hardest hit, with delays of up to an hour between 8 and 11am.

Check-in desks in Brisbane, Melbourne and Auckland in New Zealand were also affected.

Auckland Airport confirmed the two immigraiton system failures across both sides of the Tasman were connected.

RELATED: Chaotic scenes at Sydney airport

In a statement issued just after 11am, the Department of Immigration and Border Protection said it was “aware of an external system outage with the Society International Telecommunications Aeronautiques (SITA) system”.

“This will affect travellers entering and departing Australia,” said the statement.

“Additional Australian Border Force officers will be deployed as required to minimise the impact to passengers.

“Passengers are advised to contact their airline for further information and to allow sufficient time to be processed at the airport.”

People arriving at Sydney Airport early this morning, found all check-in and customs desks were closed.

Despite being told the system would be up and running within ten minutes, 45-minutes later there were still waiting amid warnings all flights would be significantly delayed.

Queues snaked out the airport doors, as passengers began to panic about missed connections.

Some took to social media, tweeting about “complete carnage” at Sydney Airport.

The Department of Immigration and Border Protection carried out a major system update over the weekend, which took a list government websites and immigration-related systems offline for several hours including the Visa Entitlement Verification Online system, eLodgement of visa applications, and Visa Entitlement and Verification Online.

The notice for the planned software update flagged there could be issues for people not using the latest version of their web browsers.

It is not known if today’s problems are linked to the software maintenance on the weekend.

Melbourne Airport Head of Communications Grant Smith said the Advanced Passenger Processing system had experienced an outage.

“This system is used globally, so the issue affects many other airports as well as Melbourne,” said Mr Smith.

“Melbourne Airport is asking anyone flying internationally today to please contact your airline for an update on individual flights, or visit melbourneairport.com.au for the current status of the system outage.”

Brisbane and Sydney Airports also confirmed they were impacted by the issue, responsibility for which lay with the Department of Immigration and Border Protection.

Qantas flights were taking off — but some had been delayed by up to 30-minutes.

Virgin Australia was experiencing minimal delays to flights, by employing a “workaround” to the check-in system. .

The DIBP was investigating the issue but is yet to provide a media statement.

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