Australia/NZ: Immigration computer crash causes lengthy delays

A computer crash that caused lengthy delays for international passengers at New Zealand and Australian airports has been fixed. Immigration NZ national border manager Senta Jehle said the global Advance Passenger Processing (APP) system went down for three hours on Monday morning, but was up and running again. The APP is used during check-in to confirm whether a passenger is authorised to travel to their destination. "INZ used manual back-up systems, which caused some delays to passengers checking in for flights to and from New Zealand and passengers arriving in New Zealand," Jehle said. Auckland Airport says there are now six flights with minor delays and that passengers should check with their airlines. Wellington Airport was also affected, with the system down between 11am -1.30pm. The airlines check-in process is now back to normal. Aviation expert Irene King said the APP system was brought in 10 to 12 years ago to provide almost-instant checks that passengers were allowed to fly to international destinations. The APP system was "pretty robust" and she could not recall another time it went down, forcing the same checks to be done manually. "To do manual checks you are having to think about how things were done 15 years ago." Airlines who flew people to countries they were not authorised to enter could be fined between $10,000 to $15,000 and also had to then fly the passenger back to where they came from. In Australia passengers at international airports also experienced major delays but the APP system was now operational again. International flights were departing up to 45 minutes behind schedule from Melbourne and about 30 minutes behind schedule from Sydney. <br/>