Are you flying out of Dallas Love Field Airport? Officials say you should get there 3 hours early due to heavy traffic

DALLAS – Check-in chaos at Love Field improves after a day of long lines and delays.

Southwest Airlines blamed a faulty baggage screening machine for the problems. Airport officials also said that “the extremely high number of departing passengers checking baggage is causing congestion in the check-in process.”

“This screener is back in operation,” the airline said in a statement. “Our team is working to process customers and their baggage as quickly as possible. As always, we encourage customers to arrive at DAL at least two hours before their flight and we thank them for their patience.”

“This is crazy,” said Brandon Rhodes, who was flying to Las Vegas. “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

One traveler told CBS News Texas that she waited in line for more than two hours and still hadn’t made it all the way through.

Some passengers had to wait in line for more than three hours and missed their flights, but then had to quickly make other arrangements.

“We arrived two hours early and when we got in our Uber we saw the line literally all the way down the street and we looked at each other and said oh no,” said Brittney Reed, who was trying to fly home to Phoenix. “We’ve had some horrible experiences at airports before, but I’ve never seen a crowd like this in my life.”

The baggage screening problem was exacerbated by the high volume of travel on Thursday, when thousands of visitors were in town for the Alpha Kappa Alpha fraternity convention, where Vice President Kamala Harris was the keynote speaker.

“We have flooded both Love Airport and DFW and everyone is heading home,” said Alicia Lewis, an AKA member. “So the lines are very long. Bring patience. But we do everything with a smile.”

Love Field officials recommend departing travelers arrive at the airport three hours before their scheduled departure time on Friday.