Long queues form after passport-less clearance suffers 'system issue' at Changi Airport T1 departure hall

Over 50 travellers had to queue up at Changi Airport Terminal 1 departure hall after passport-less clearance at its automated lanes became unavailable at around 12:20am on Nov. 3.

According to a traveller at the scene, "all 40 facial recognition machines were out of service", and passengers had to undergo manual immigration clearance, reported Shin Min Daily News.

Traveller queued for 30 minutes

The traveller told Shin Min that he had already checked into his flight and planned to go through security checks at the departure hall when he noticed that the passport-less clearance was down.

In response, the ground staff "immediately activated manual immigration counters" and asked affected travellers to queue up for manual clearance.

According to the traveller, the authorities activated two such counters at first and added three more later on.

"Nevertheless, I found out there were still 10 people before me after queueing for 30 minutes. As I was worried about missing my flight, I informed the ground staff," recounted the traveller.

The ground staff subsequently directed the traveller to a priority counter, allowing him to pass through security checks quickly and catch his flight.

ICA statement

In response to Mothership's queries, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said immigration clearance at the automated lanes at T1 departure hall became unavailable "due to a system issue".

Other immigration halls at Changi Airport were not affected, according to ICA.

In response to the outage, ICA "immediately activated [its] business continuity plan where more resources were deployed to help man the manual immigration counters and perform crowd control".

"Our officers identified travellers with imminent departing flights and expedited their clearance by guiding them to the manual counters and Duty Office for manual clearance," the statement read.

ICA added that the immigration clearance at the automated lanes was restored at around 2:40am, and no passengers missed their flights due to the outage.

The authority is also investigating the cause of the system unavailability.

"We regret the inconvenience caused to travellers, and would like to thank travellers for their understanding, patience, and cooperation with our officers on the ground," said ICA.

Background

According to an Oct. 24 press release issued by ICA, passport-less clearance has been fully rolled out across all four terminals in Changi Airport since Sep. 30, 2024.

Singapore residents who are arriving and departing can clear immigration by using facial and iris biometrics — without the need to present their passports.

While foreign visitors will still need to present their passports when they arrive in Singapore, they do not need to do so when they depart.

As of Oct. 15, close to 1.5 million travellers have cleared immigration without having to present their passports under this initiative.

The full implementation of passport-less clearance also reduced the average clearance time for each traveller by 60 per cent, from 25 seconds to 10 seconds.

Top image via Shin Min Daily News