The CEO of the DAA, Dalton Philips, has admitted the situation at Dublin Airport is "delicate" and that management are continuing to hire security staff as quickly as they can in order to avoid cancelling flights in the coming weeks.
Mr Philips told RTE's News at One that whilst they have recruited 200 extra security officers to date they still need to hire another hundred.
"We still are not on a level we need to be to consistently offer that service we would have offered in the pre-pandemic period.This is a European and worldwide problem, and we are doing everything we can to get back to where we were.
"We continue to hire as fast as we can. We are in a very delicate situation because when you are down the required numbers of officers you need like last weekend you can have a very rapid build up of queues. We are in a very tight situation.
"Do we work in this direction or do we curtail capacity and cancel flights? Which is what many European airports have been doing. I certainly don't want to do that. I don't think that is right. But I do admit we are running at fine margins here."
Mr Philips said they have a class of thirty security officers coming through the system this week.
"We have a class of thirty-five next week. By the end of June we will have the full complement of officers. Between now and the end of June it is delicate.
"We do have some outside queueing areas outside the terminal. They are covered. They were covered last night for the rain and people were being channelled through that. But the queues were moving fast and by 630am it was down to less than ten minutes.
"To have all the security lanes open at this stage is still not possible because we are rebounding from this pandemic. Rebounding at a rate that none of us anticipated."
He added that the airport was running smoothly today."We had a solid morning so far. We had a build up between 3.30am and 4.30am which was the busiest period. Through security was 45 minutes at that period. By 630am queues were down to ten minutes. And we have been under 15 minutes since then.
"It is a very busy day. Anxious passengers presenting early. Not surprising given the anxiety out there. Staff have been brilliant. It is a very busy day and it is going to be a very busy weekend."
