Despite changes to layout, new equipment and more staffing, delays getting through airport security have not gone away.

Airport passengers faced queues of up to 45 minutes to get through security on Monday evening last week.

The Department of Infrastructure blamed staff training for the delays, with periods where only one scanner can be manned.

A spokesman said: ’There is currently a considerable amount of training taking place - initial familiarisation of new staff and refresher training for existing officers.

’This has resulted in periods where only one lane of the two is operational, although normally this is outside of the peak periods.

’Unfortunately on Monday the peak came earlier than expected, which resulted in a longer queue time than normal.’

Peak time passenger queues at Ronaldsway started to become problem at the end of September 2017.

Airport bosses weren’t quite sure of the cause although they said part of the issue was the close timing of flights using large aircraft.

Another factor is the growing number of passengers using apps and online check-in.

Changes were made, at a cost of £300,000, to the layout of the central search area, automatic boarding card readers were installed and extra staff brought in to operate the second scanning line at busy times.

The boarding card readers were temporarily taken out of service for several weeks in September, awaiting software updates and inspections by the manufacturer.

These are now complete and the readers are operational again.

The spokesman added: ’Everything is done to keep queues to a minimum but passengers should always aim to arrive at the airport in plenty of time to ensure their journey gets off to a comfortable start.

’Carefully packing bags at home and carrying only essential items in hand luggage can help reduce the need for lengthy manual checks at security.’