CANBERRA, Nov. 8 (Xinhua) -- An Australian Border Force (ABF) technical outage has caused major processing delays at international airports around the country.

The outage on Friday morning affected SmartGate kiosks for inbound and outbound passengers at every international airport in Australia.

The ABF said in a statement that additional officers have been deployed to manually process passengers.

"The issue is currently being rectified and systems are slowly returning online. We appreciate travelers' patience as we continue to work through the issue," the ABF said.

A spokesperson for Sydney Airport - Australia's busiest airport - said the issue was causing delays for passengers, with queues longer than normal, but that no flights had been affected.

"Passengers traveling today are encouraged to check with their airline regarding the status of their flight, and leave plenty of time when traveling to the T1 International Terminal," they told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Melbourne Airport said that about 1,000 passengers were affected by the issue on Friday morning. Enditem

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