Customs outage causes backup in airports

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - New Year, new headaches.

Airports suffered from a computer shutdown of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection systems across the country.

People came back from their holiday vacations to headaches and tempers rising as international terminals had to process everything by hand.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection told Fox 5 that “U.S. Customs and Border Protection is experiencing a temporary outage with its processing systems at various air ports of entry and taking immediate action to address the technology disruption.  CBP officers continue to process international travelers using alternative procedures until systems are back online. 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."

The Port Authority was contacted regarding the outages in local airports such as JFK Airport in Queens.

In a statement to Fox 5, they said, “There is no outage at this time-- I believe you are referring to the Customs outages.”