Belfast International Airport has apologised after passengers experienced security delays on Saturday morning.

In some cases the delays caused passengers to miss their flights.

The security issues were caused by a shortage of staff due to short-term illness.

The airport said it was working to bring in additional staff to “understand the issues” and “ensure this does not happen again”.

Tom Breen was a passenger at the airport on Saturday morning.

He said he arrived in “good time” but noticed the length of the queue for security right away, with “1,000 people maybe more” waiting.

Only two of the six security lanes were open and people had just “seconds to get to the gate”, Tom told The Nolan Show.

As a result of the delays Tom and 25 others on the same flight were unable to board and missed the plane.

Jim was at the international airport for a flight a month ago and said he experienced the same issues.

“They’ve spent a fortune putting in six of these new machines, last time I was there only one of them was open,” he told the Nolan Show.

There were “huge queues” to go through security.

He added that people, especially those in business, are “avoiding” the airport because the issues have gotten so bad.

The airport said the issues were caused by “short-term illness” and the delays for passengers were “totally unacceptable”.

It added there is now additional staff and that it is working to understand the issues and ensure it does not happen again.

By mid-morning on Saturday the security wait times had returned to normal, a spokesperson for the airport said.

They also urged any passengers impacted by the issues to contact the airport.

“We trust the measures now in place will ensure this does not happen again. We can only apologise again and thank passengers for their patience and understanding,” the spokesperson added.