The patience of many passengers at German airports was tested when a technical failure paralysed the automatic border check systems at major airports nationwide for several hours on Friday afternoon.
This resulted in long waiting times and queues at passport control, notably for those arriving on flights from outside the visa-free Schengen Area.
In the evening, the situation eased after hours of IT problems that plagued the system that handles Germany’s automated entry verifications.
At around 6pm (1700GMT), the first airports, including Germany’s largest airport in Frankfurt, the capital’s BER airport and Dusseldorf Airport, gave the all-clear.
According to the German Interior Ministry and the police, there were technical disruptions to the information systems operated by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) for the police information network. These also affected immigration checks conducted by the police.
During the outage, officers had to carry out passport and visa checks manually, which led to “increased waiting times and backlogs,” a spokesman said.
The primary impact was on entries from non-Schengen countries and departures to such countries.
The disruptions began around 2pm (1300 GMT)and extra officers had been called to the airports to help with the passport controls.
Officials at airports including Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Dusseldorf had said that flights were proceeding despite some delays.
What caused the IT failure remains unclear. The BKA is reportedly working intensively with partner authorities to rectify the disruptions and find the causes, according to both the Ministry and the police.
However, it was emphasized that there was no chaos. The security checkpoints were not affected.
Passengers are on their way to passport control at Berlin Brandenburg airport. Passengers from outside the Schengen area, face major delays in their check in at German airports due to the crash of the IT system that handles Germany’s automated entries. Jörg Carstensen/dpa
