U.S. Customs and Border Protection computers crashed Monday evening, delaying airline passengers nationwide, including those traveling to airports in the Southland.

“Travelers at some ports of entry are experiencing longer than usual wait times and CBP officers are working to process travelers as quickly as possible while maintaining the highest levels of security,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Daniel Hetlage said in the midst of the outage.

Airport officials and international travelers reported delays ranging from 30 minutes to two hours at various airports throughout the country. Leaving New Year’s weekend holiday passengers with frayed tempers, there were plenty of posts on social media Monday that showed unhappy people waiting, standing in long lines.

The computer outage, which began around 6 p.m., affected the processing of people coming into the country on international flights, according to Los Angeles International Airport spokesman Frederick Badlissi.

Badlissi noted, “It’s my understanding it didn’t affect passengers going on domestic flights.”

As of 8 p.m., CBP officials issued a notice that the computers were operational again: “All airports are back online after a temporary outage … No indication the disruption was malicious in nature.”

–City News Service

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