After weeks of major delays at the security gates at Dublin Airport it appears the problem with long queues has started affecting another part of the airport.
I went out to Dublin Airport at 6am on Thursday to see the lengthy security queues for myself and was shocked at the chaotic scenes for the baggage check-in desks instead.
There were queues of hundreds of anxious passengers stretching back almost the whole length of the terminal with the longest queues for the Air France and Qatar Airways check-in desks.
There were five members of staff working on the Qatar Airways check-in desk and three working on the Air France desk, leaving many passengers waiting in line for hours as they became more and more stressed about making connecting flights.
Other airlines such as British Airways and Lufthansa had much shorter lines and there were almost no queues at all at the Ryanair desks.
The supposedly long queues for security seemed non-existent. This was confirmed by a member of airport staff who said the queues at security had been worse two hours previously but had mostly cleared up by 6am on Thursday - which is supposedly the start of the peak time at the airport.
Speaking to passengers waiting in the queues for the check-in desks, they had all paid heed to the warning about long queues at security and arrived three hours before - only to be stuck in much longer queues before they even reached security.
Richie, Orla and family were heading to the Dominican Republic today, with a layover in Paris, and were "shocked" when they found themselves caught out by the unexpectedly long queue at the baggage check-in desk.
"I wasn't expecting this at all," said Richie. "The desk doesn't open until three hours before the flight so we got here three hours before and joined the queue up there.
"We're making a connecting flight as well. We've no leeway at all so hopefully we get [to the top of the queue] in the next hour.
"I thought the problem would be at security but the queues there seem to be okay."
"There's a few hundred [ahead of us] and there's only [three] check-in desks open for Air France," said Orla. "And the desk was only supposed to open two-and-a-half hours before, hence why we only got here three hours [early].
"We were told there was no point coming any earlier.
"If you've to check in bags, you've got a problem."
Shannon and Charlie Boyle were flying to Amsterdam to catch a connecting flight to Dubai and despite having arrived four hours early, there were stuck in a queue that was hardly moving, just to get their bags checked in.
Despite arriving four hours early, when they got here they found it "still wasn't enough".
"We haven't even got to security yet," said Shannon. "Our flight is at 8.50am and I don't even think we're going to [make it] by the looks of it.
"We're here an hour already - since 5am - so I don't know. It's a bad system.
"There's three people on the [Air France check-in] desks and there's how many thousands to cater to?"
"We're hoping to catch that connecting flight if we get out of here on time.
"We were down at the back so it's slowly just [moving]. Sure what can you do? You have to just queue up and pray!"
A young family, Alex and Aretha and their two children, Lia and Alex, were flying to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil today with a stopover in Paris and arrived to the airport hours ahead of their flight to Paris.
"We planned to come three hours early," said Alex. "Our flight is not till 8.50am so we're hoping it's not as bad over on that side [of security] as it is on this side. We've been here [queuing] about 25 mins."
"We woke up at four in the morning to be here," said Aretha.
"People were telling us that it was going to be bad but I didn't expect it at the bag drop as well. I thought it would be the x-rays.
"But with the two kids it's hard as well. I didn't think it was going to be this bad."
"We've got an hour changeover in Paris so if the flight gets delayed we might miss that flight," said Alex. "We'll see how it goes."
Maria and Shane, who were flying to Melbourne, Australia via Doha with Qatar Airways, had made "slow progress" in the check-in queue after waiting in line for an hour and a half.
"It was over the radio saying to arrive three and a half hours before so we came three hours and 15 minutes before and we [joined the queue] down at the doors at the doors, pretty much at the very end [of the terminal], near security," said Marina.
"It didn't move for the first half hour - it barely moved."
READ MORE: Dublin Airport issues Easter travel warning as lengthy delays expected to continue over busy period
READ MORE: Common passport defects that could see you sent home from the airport amid Easter travel warning
