Dublin Airport operator DAA says it will continue to “refine and adapt” its security operations after passengers were forced to queue outside the terminal building early on Saturday morning.
Images and footage posted on social media before 5am showed a very large queue of passengers outside Terminal 1 while large queues were also photographed inside the terminal.
The queues came ahead of a large wave of early morning flights with many passengers travelling abroad at the start of the school Easter holidays.
As the Irish Times reports, DAA said with passengers arriving as advised three and a half hours before departure time it had to stagger the flow of passengers into the terminal building.
It said this was “well managed by airport police with assistance from An Garda Siochana”. The operator of the airport thanked passengers for their co-operation and patience “at this extremely busy time of the morning in advance of the first wave of departures”.
In a statement on Saturday DAA said that queues for check-in, bag drop and security “moved well” on Saturday morning in advance of the first wave of departures.
The DAA indicated there was an average queue time of an hour before 6am today.
We are currently filtering passengers into the terminal buildings in an orderly manner to join check in & security queues which are moving & we thank passengers for their cooperation & patience at this extremely busy time of the morning in advance of the first wave of departures.
— Dublin Airport (@DublinAirport) April 9, 2022
The authority said as the number of passengers travelling through Dublin Airport this Easter will increase over the coming days they will continue to “refine and adapt” its security screening operation, to ensure that all passengers can pass through security in plenty of time to make their flights.
The DAA acknowledged that the “shortage of security screening staff” is the main reason for the current issues.
“While there have been no constraints on recruitment - more than 100 new security staff have already been recruited so far this year - DAA is re-doubling its efforts to more staff. This week, DAA invited about 250 candidates for interview, and almost 100 successfully progressed through the interview stage.
"Bringing recruits into the operation had been delayed recently by the requirement for enhanced background checks for aviation workers which came into effect on January 1st this year. Thankfully, however, this logjam is now easing.”
