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Customs Computer Outage Delays Travelers at US Airports

VOA News

   Thousands of travelers entering the United States experienced delays
   Friday because of a technology outage affecting Customs and Border
   Protection's (CBP) processing systems.

   Reuters reported that in a tweet at 6:37 p.m. EDT, CBP said that the
   affected systems were "coming back online"and thattravelerswere
   beingprocessed.The agency said there was "no indication" that the
   disruption was "malicious in nature."

   Earlier, John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York said via
   Twitter that CPB agents weremanually processing travelers.

   Travelers posted images and video on social media showing long lines at
   airports.

   The outageaffected onlyinbound U.S. international flights,not
   departures.The delaysaffected both foreign visitors to the United
   States as well as U.S. citizens arriving from abroad.

   But the Federal Aviation Administration, Reuters reported, said the
   outage caused no changes in flights.

   On an average day, CBP processes around 358,000 airpassengers and crew.

   Thiswasnot theCPB system's first outage.Itwasout of servicefor four
   hours on Jan. 2, 2017,Reuters said. AHomeland Security inspector
   general's office report issuedin November of that year found
   "inadequate CBP software capacitytesting, leaving the potential for
   recurrence of processingerrors."

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