There were lengthy queues again at Dublin airport in the early hours of this morning.
A spokesperson for daa, which manages the airport, said that these delays were experienced by passengers in both Terminal 1 and 2 between 2am and 4.30am.
Graeme McQueen said that security checks are operating 24 hours a day in Terminal 1, but that the operation was minimal in the early hours of the morning.
Security checks do not begin until 4am in Terminal 2.
However, he said a "higher than expected number of passengers" attended Dublin airport very early this morning.
Daa currently advises travellers to arrive at the airport up to three and a half hours before their flight departs.
Mr McQueen said it appeared that some passengers were arriving even earlier than that.
"We continue to tweak our security model based on demand," he said, "We will take learning from this morning and we will continue to tweak the model in the days and weeks ahead."
Mr McQueen said that as soon as more security staff were available on site, further lanes were opened and the problems eased.
He said it was likely that a small number of passengers may have missed their flights as a result of the delays, and that daa's customer service team will work with anyone affected.
Nothing moving at Terminal 2 #DublinAirport pic.twitter.com/iUpCRru9tz
— Mark Quinn (@markquinn77) April 8, 2022
As the volume of people travelling through the airport increases following the collapse of international travel during the pandemic, daa has apologised for the delays experienced by passengers in recent weeks.
It said it is working to "build back our operation" and this requires "the recruitment, training and mandatory background checks required for all staff working at an international airport."
Mr McQueen said that part of the long term solution is boosting the number of airport security staff from 600 to 900, and that this week 250 applicants were interviewed, and offers are being made to around 100 of them.
Staff training would then take between five to six weeks, he said.
Mr McQueen said that new staff background checks still took time, but confirmed that they were now being processed more quickly than at the start of the year.
