Airport chaos as 'smart' gates malfunction causing travellers to queue for more than a kilometre

Technical issue with smart gates at Sydney AirportCausing long delays for travellersREAD MORE: Mass flight cancellations and delays at major airport 

A nationwide technical issue sparked chaos at Sydney International Airport, with customers queuing for a kilometre as technicians scrambled to fix the issue.

The Australian Border Force (ABF) confirmed the outage on Saturday morning.

"We are aware of a technical issue impacting the smart gates at Sydney Airport," a spokesman said, apologising for the delays.

"We are working to fix the issue as quickly as possible and have deployed additional officers to assist with facilitating travellers."

A nationwide technical issue with immigration e-gates caused major delays at Sydney International Airport. Picture: Supplied

In a post to X late on Saturday morning, Sydney Airport provided this update: 'Issues with e-gate machines have been resolved. The queue for customs clearance at the T1 international terminal is now back to normal. Thank you for your patience.'

But the issue sparked major delays for travellers, with crowds accumulating between the immigration gate and the terminal.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) traveller Rajiv Singal captured the scope of the delays earlier in the morning.

A lengthy queue formed from the immigration gate to the terminal as the ABF attempted to fix the problem. Picture: X

"Flying international out of Sydney? There is a kilometre long queue for immigration check!" He posted with the accompanying video.

"And guess it would be same all over Australia as there seems to be an issue with their systems."

It is understood Melbourne Airport only experienced a slight outage but has not been impacted by delays.

The ABF has been contacted for further comment.