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Primary inspection kiosks at Toronto Pearson International Airport are back online after a protracted outage linked to federal border agency systems, a disruption that triggered long customs queues and left some arriving passengers waiting on parked aircraft while congestion cleared.
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Systems restored after days of disruption
Publicly available information from Toronto Pearson and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) indicates that an IT issue affecting primary inspection kiosks has been resolved, with automated kiosks and eGates at Terminals 1 and 3 now back in regular use for arriving international travellers.
The outage, which was attributed to a wider disruption of CBSA digital systems, affected the self-service primary inspection kiosks that handle identity verification and customs declarations for most passengers entering Canada. When the kiosks are unavailable, travellers must be processed manually by border services officers, significantly reducing throughput in the customs hall.
CBSA documentation on recent system outages notes that technical failures affecting primary inspection infrastructure can persist beyond the initial incident window, with intermittent issues and reduced capacity continuing while backlogs are cleared. In this case, reports from travellers at Toronto Pearson described delays that stretched over multiple days before wait times gradually returned to typical levels.
As of this week, Pearson’s live wait-time dashboard is once again showing normal conditions at Canada customs in both terminals, suggesting that the backlog created by the kiosk outage has largely been cleared.
Long lines, onboard holds and terminal congestion
During the outage, passengers arriving at Toronto Pearson reported extensive waits at customs, with some accounts describing queues stretching deep into the arrivals corridors and wait times of several hours to clear the border hall.
Because customs processing capacity in the arrivals area was constrained, airport operations used “metering” tactics already outlined in Pearson’s peak-time guidance, which warn that when customs becomes saturated, travellers may be required to remain on board their aircraft until space opens in the inspection hall. Social media and forum posts from the outage period describe multiple flights held at gates while CBSA worked through existing lines.
CBSA and independent outage summaries released over the past year highlight that such IT disruptions can quickly cascade across the air travel system. When automated kiosks and associated inspection systems are offline, arriving passengers cannot clear customs at normal volumes, leading to aircraft holds, crowded jet bridges and congestion across baggage claim and public arrivals areas until traffic levels recede.
For travellers, the impact at Toronto Pearson was felt most acutely on busy international arrivals banks, when multiple wide-body flights landed within a short window. In these periods, posts from passengers referenced waits of several hours from door opening to exiting the customs hall, even for those who had already collected checked luggage.
Role of kiosks and eGates in Canada’s border process
Primary inspection kiosks and eGates are a central component of the arrivals process at major Canadian airports, including Toronto Pearson. CBSA guidance explains that the kiosks are designed to handle identity verification and digital customs declarations for most air travellers, including family groups of up to five people in a single transaction, while eGates process eligible individuals who have completed declarations electronically in advance.
At Pearson, the technology is embedded in both terminals and forms the first step for most international passengers after they leave the aircraft. Travellers scan their passports, capture a photo and complete their customs declaration on screen before proceeding to a border services officer for final verification. When the kiosks operate normally, the combination of self-service processing and officer oversight significantly increases the number of passengers that can be cleared per hour.
Past infrastructure reports from the Greater Toronto Airports Authority show that Toronto Pearson has invested heavily in expanding kiosk capacity and eGate lanes in recent years, citing gains in throughput and shorter average border wait times as key benefits. Those same reports also note that the airport’s performance is closely linked to the reliability of federal inspection technology and systems operated by CBSA.
CBSA’s own outage summaries emphasize that when technical problems occur, contingency plans shift more passengers into traditional officer-led processing. While this maintains security and admissibility standards, the approach is far more time-consuming, particularly during peak travel seasons or at Canada’s busiest international gateway.
Wait times improving but travellers urged to plan ahead
With kiosks now functioning again, live data on Pearson’s airport dashboard indicates that customs wait times for arriving international passengers have eased, often returning to the zero-to-five-minute range during off-peak periods. The airport’s public travel information hub, however, continues to recommend that inbound and outbound passengers build in extra time when flying during traditionally busy windows such as late afternoons, evenings and holiday periods.
Guidance on Pearson’s official channels advises travellers to arrive at least three hours before scheduled departure for international and United States flights and at least two hours before domestic departures. While these recommendations are focused on outbound journeys, they reflect the broader reality that security and border processes can experience unexpected slowdowns when technology or staffing issues arise.
CBSA materials on kiosk operations also point out that occasional outages are anticipated in system design, and that during such events airport staff will redirect passengers toward officer-assisted processing. The agency continues to promote the use of digital tools, including pre-arrival declaration options and trusted traveller programs, as a way to speed individual processing even when automated hardware is under strain.
For travellers arriving in Toronto in the near term, the restoration of the primary inspection kiosks means a return to the usual mix of self-service and in-person checks that has underpinned Pearson’s post-pandemic recovery. However, recent events have underscored how dependent the modern border experience has become on complex IT systems, and how quickly disruptions to those systems can ripple through Canada’s busiest airport.
What this means for upcoming fall and winter travel
The resolution of the kiosk outage comes as Toronto Pearson prepares for the fall and winter travel seasons, traditionally marked by steady business travel and spikes around school breaks and major holidays. Airport performance reports show that investments in digital processing and self-serve options are key pillars of capacity planning heading into these busier periods.
CBSA’s most recent public report on system disruptions outlines a series of recommendations to strengthen resilience, including refining outage protocols, enhancing business continuity planning and improving communication with airport partners. These measures are intended to ensure that future technical incidents are contained more quickly and that passenger impacts are minimized.
For now, publicly available wait-time data and operational updates suggest that Toronto Pearson has moved back into normal operating patterns at customs following the kiosk outage. Travellers planning international trips through the airport over the coming months are being encouraged, through various information channels, to use available digital declaration tools where eligible and to monitor live airport dashboards on the day of travel for the latest view of security and border wait times.
As Canada’s largest air hub, Toronto Pearson’s experience during the recent outage illustrates how critical reliable border technology has become to keeping passenger flows steady. With kiosks restored and contingency measures under review, the focus is turning toward ensuring that any future disruptions are shorter and less disruptive for travellers passing through the airport’s customs halls.
Toronto Pearson customs and immigration information
CBSA guidance on airport kiosks and eGates