Long queues at Singapore’s Changi Airport due to technical issues, resolved in 4 hours
- The air hub said that an immigration system disruption affected the auto-lanes for departing and arriving passengers across the terminals
- Some automated lanes along two border crossings between Singapore and Malaysia were also affected
Departure automated lanes at all four Changi Airport terminals were affected and travellers were redirected to the manual lanes for immigration clearance, said the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) in a Facebook update at about 2pm.
Some automated lanes along two border crossings between Singapore and Malaysia were also affected, said ICA, adding that there was no disruption to immigration clearance at coastal checkpoints.
The authority said that it recalled off-duty officers to provide additional support and to “ensure law and order” amid the delays.
Snaking lines were seen in the morning at the departure areas. At about 11.30am, ICA said there was “intermittent slowness” of its immigration clearance system across all checkpoints.
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The agency said about half an hour later that it was experiencing “system slowness” at some passenger clearance checkpoints.
“Delays are expected and travellers are advised to postpone all non-essential travel, where applicable,” ICA said.
In an update at about 1.30pm, Changi Airport advised travellers to head to the airport earlier because of the disruption.
When CNA arrived at the departure hall of Terminal 1 departure hall at around 1.20pm, things looked relatively calm and orderly, with normal length queues at most of the check-in rows.
However, lines stretched out within the check-in area as passengers were directed to manned immigration clearance counters, rather than using the automatic clearance gates.
There were about 30 passengers in each queue. “Immigration clearance for all departing passengers is delayed due to technical reasons. We apologise for the inconvenience,” an announcement over the PA system said.
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A woman at Terminal 3, who declined to be named, told CNA at 1.50pm that her loved one had been queuing at the immigration counters for around 20 minutes, and they were still in the middle of the queue.
Their flight was at 2.25pm and she said they did not know about the long queues before arriving at the airport.
Also at Terminal 3 was another woman sending off her mother. The woman, who did not want to be named, told CNA that she and her father arrived at Terminal 3 at about 11am and noticed that queues were already forming.
By 12.20pm, there was “a super long queue” extending from the immigration gates to Row 10 in the terminal, she said. The gates are located between Rows 5 and 6.
Her mother queued for 15 minutes from about 1.40pm before clearing immigration. All nine lanes had around 20 passengers waiting to clear immigration manually.
The automated clearance lanes at Terminal 3 were empty. There was also a sign instructing foreign air crew members to “proceed to counter for clearance”.
At about 1pm at Terminal 4, an announcement was played out over the speakers, saying immigration clearance for all departing passengers had been delayed for technical reasons.
The queues were seen at the immigration counters within the terminal’s automatic clearance area. Each queue at the baggage scanners had at least 20 passengers in line.
Jetstar said none of their passengers missed any of the 11 flights operated by the Australian budget carrier in the morning.
Singapore Airlines subsidiary Scoot said all its flights departing Changi Airport were “currently operating as per schedule”.
