Hundreds stranded at Oslo Airport as police IT system fails

Hundreds of travellers remain stuck in passport control at Oslo Airport after a technical failure disrupted Norway’s police IT network on Wednesday morning, Dagbladet reports.

Passenger Jørn Cato Strand, who arrived from Bangkok at 7:30 AM, told the newspaper he had been waiting in line ever since. “The queue isn’t moving forward,” he said, estimating around 500 people were affected. Border officers were processing arrivals manually with paper forms, he added.

Avinor, Norway’s airport operator, confirmed “technical challenges” with the police border system were causing delays. “It’s serious when the police network is down,” said Henrik Nielsen of the National Police Directorate, though he noted the outage—lasting under 30 minutes—had not affected emergency call services.

By 10 AM, police acknowledged persistent slowness in the system but said the cause remained under investigation. Images from the airport showed long lines snaking through the international terminal, with no immediate signs of improvement.

Norway’s police IT network handles passport checks, criminal records, and other law enforcement data. The failure follows a two-week ceasefire agreement announced overnight between the US, Iran, and Israel, though Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon continued Wednesday, killing eight and wounding 28 in the city of Sidon.