Dublin Airport has been dogged by delays caused by security staff shortages and one passenger told Dublin Live of the 'mayhem' of getting an early morning flight.
Erica was due to get a flight at 6.05am to Paris on Friday morning.
Having heard about the long delays, she arrived at 3am - the time Air France's check in for the flight opened at.
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After checking in, she made the devastating discovery that the queue to get into security - not through security - stretched back to the Ryanair gates and looped around them.
Erica said: "It took 40 mins to get to the section where you scan your boarding card to enter security."
The delays in getting to security meant Erica's group only had 45 minutes to get through security and to their gate - despite arriving three hours early.
She said: "Security was a mess but a very kind staff member helped us to the front after we told him we only had 45 minutes
"Without that we would not have made it. The line for security was easily 1.5 hours and the airport was jammed."
She added: "Our flight was delayed because so many passengers were not on board on time.
Erica was full of praise for the staff.
She said, despite the situation "the staff are calm patient and so helpful, I feel for them".
"A flight to Paris should not have been so much stress , it was mayhem! But I honestly think the staff are compassionate and it could have been way way worse only for there level of helpfulness."
Dublin Live has contacted Dublin Airport Authority for comment about this morning's delays.
They previously apologised for the delays and said many security staff left at the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
A spokesman said: "Because of the COVID pandemic, around 1,000 staff left Dublin Airport under a voluntary severance scheme and while there is an ongoing recruitment drive to replace frontline staff in areas such as security and retail, all companies who operate at airports across Europe are experiencing similar challenges.
"We are taking immediate action to address this issue... We are currently working extremely hard to ramp up our operation at Dublin Airport after the collapse of international travel over the past two years, including the recruitment, training and necessary background checks required for all staff working at an international airport."
They added that these processes could take "several weeks".
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