Passport control chaos and queues at airports – in the middle of New Year's travel. But now the police's data problems have been solved.
”Everything is working as it should,” says Malin Näfver at the police media center.
Computer problems at the police affected passport controls at Swedish airports both in and out of the country during the day, which resulted in queues and a lot of people in the terminals.
But at 3 p.m., things were running as expected at Arlanda and Landvetter, which were among the airports affected by the problems, according to Swedavia.
”"There may be some queues, but these are always big travel days. It is important that as a traveler you are still out to the airport in good time," says Lovisa Ernestam at Swedavia's press office.
Manual passport checks were temporarily introduced at airports due to the problems, and the police were also unable to issue provisional passports.
Air travelers traveling to or from third countries, outside Schengen, have been primarily affected.
”"There will be queues and there will be a lot of people in the terminals, but from what I understand, the manual handling has still flowed fairly well during the day. But we are happy and grateful that the problem has been resolved."”
The problems do not appear to lead to delays in air traffic, according to Swedavia.
”"Based on the information I have, there shouldn't be any delays. But of course we'll have to see, and it's important that as a traveler you follow developments," says Ernestam.
The data problems were caused by an update to the police's IT system that was made early Monday morning. The publication of incident reports on the police website may also have been affected by the problems. Other police operations have mainly functioned as they should, according to the police.
This type of update is done on an ongoing basis, according to Malin Näfver at the police. How the update could have caused the problems will now be investigated further.
”"This is an operational disruption and we will now investigate what went wrong," says Näfver.
”"I don't think they knew this could happen and then let it go through a day like this."”
Source: TT
