In a letter, Charlie Cornish said he "cannot apologise enough" for the delays and the group will "get back to where we need to be soon". 

"First and foremost, I want to say that I understand passengers’ frustrations with the queues and congestion they’ve experienced in recent weeks, and I apologise to anyone who has been affected by the disruption," Cornish added.

"We are committed to getting customers away on their trips, especially as we know many have waited such a long time to get back to travelling internationally.

"Having endured the worst crisis in our 84-year history, I can assure you that there is no one more pleased to see passengers back in our terminals than we are."

Cornish said the group has faced "almost no income and huge fixed costs" over the past two years, and "doing nothing" was "not an option".

"We had to cut costs just to survive – it was as simple as that," he continued. "We reduced expenditure wherever we could, and as a last resort we had to offer colleagues the option of voluntary redundancy because of the uncertainty about when international travel would resume."

Since February, MAG has seen demand return to more than 70% of pre-Covid levels. Cornish said a tight labour market around the airport has meant the group has been unable to hire people quickly enough to establish a full strength team.

 
"The simple fact is that we don’t currently have the number of staff we need to provide the level of service that our passengers deserve," he continued. 
 
"Practically, staff shortages mean that we cannot open all the security lanes we need and at times, this results in longer queues than we want to see."

While MAG expects most passengers to get through security gates in less than 30-40 minutes, Cornish warned there will be times over the next few months when waiting times will rise to between 60 and 90 minutes.
 

He advised passengers to arrive at the airport three hours before their flight leaves to allow enough time for check-in, security and reaching the departure gate. 

Cornish said the measures are temporary and MAG is focused on "getting back to normal" in time for the summer season.  

"As new staff join us, the operational pressure we are facing will ease and queue times will begin to come down," he advised. "To achieve this, we are busy recruiting new officers and taking them through the rigorous training and testing needed to work in aviation security.

"We are doing this in one of the most challenging employment markets we have seen, with competition from many other businesses that find themselves in the same position."

He said the group has interviewed more than 4,000 people for roles across the airport over the last two months, many of which have started in the operation and more than 200 people are currently going through the security checks needed before they can start training. Around 250 new security staff are expected to start by early May. 
 
Cornish said the airport’s focus for the next four weeks is delivering a "more predictable and reliable level of service" for passengers.
  
"We recognise that people want to know what to expect. We will be deploying more staff to help people when there are queues, and we are also working to provide more real-time information to our customers both online and in our terminals," he said.
  
"Together, we are committed to getting people away on their holidays and trips abroad with the best possible airport experience.

"In the short term, we know this could fall short of what customers expect, but I can assure people that we will be working hard to get passengers through the airport as quickly as we can over the coming weeks."