Forum: Disrupted immigration systems at Changi Airport restored within 12 minutes
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On July 17 at about 12.30am, the automated immigration clearance lanes at Changi Airport Terminal 2 were disrupted during a system upgrade, and travellers were unable to use them.
At that time, there was high traveller volume at the Terminal 2 arrival hall from two concurrent arrival flights with close to 400 passengers.
Our officers immediately activated our contingency plans. These included guiding travellers to the duty officer counter for manual clearance, giving priority to the elderly and those with young children, while working to restore the automated lanes.
All the automated lanes were restored within 12 minutes, and the travellers in the queue for manual clearance were directed to the automated lanes.
The arrival hall was cleared at about 1am, 30 minutes after the system disruption occurred.
Since May 2024, ICA has improved clearance efficiency at Changi Airport by enabling all travellers to use the automated lanes. We have also installed more automated lanes.
We will be improving our clearance efficiency by end-2024 when we introduce contactless clearance, which will let arriving Singapore residents and all departing travellers clear immigration faster, without the need to present their passports.
We endeavour to build immigration systems which are robust and resilient. Despite our best efforts, however, we know there will be times when the systems run into technical problems.
Hence, we have also invested significant resources in developing contingency and recovery plans.
When such incidents happen, ICA will immediately execute the plans to try to restore the systems as soon as possible and minimise inconvenience to travellers.
Meanwhile, we seek travellers’ patience and cooperation.
We will review our response to this incident and enhance our processes to manage future incidents.
Patrick Ong
Senior Assistant Director, Strategic Communications and Media Relations
Corporate Communications and Service Division
Immigration & Checkpoints Authority
