‘Unacceptable’: Another outage at CBSA kiosks at Montreal airport causes delays

Air Transat self service check-in kiosks are seen at Montreal-Trudeau International Airport in Montreal, on Friday, July 31, 2020. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)

For the second time this week, a computer outage at Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) kiosks caused delays at the Montreal airport.

An airport (ADM) spokesperson told CTV News that there was a “national outage” at the primary inspection kiosks Thursday evening, “which is causing a slowdown in border control across Canadian airports.”

The outage started at around 3 p.m. before it was resolved at approximately 7:30 p.m., according to the airport.

“These repeated outages are unacceptable. ADM will be initiating discussions with CBSA to seek explanations,” spokesperson Émilie Chevrette wrote in an email.

Customs agents had to process passengers manually during the outage

On Monday, computer problems with the kiosks also caused long lineups and travel headaches for passengers at Montreal-Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport.

Two weeks ago, there were also connectivity problems on “several computer systems” at the airport, leading to slowdowns in operations at check-in and security.