A passenger bought an airline ticket just to look for his lost luggage at Dublin Airport

• Dermot Lennon arrived back in Dublin, Ireland, on June 28 from Brisbane, Australia.
• His luggage was still missing after a week, so he bought an airline ticket just to enter the baggage claim area.

A passenger in Ireland bought a ticket just to get into Dublin Airport terminal's baggage claim to look for his luggage when it was still missing after a week.

Dermot Lennon arrived back in Dublin on June 28 after a trip to Brisbane, Australia, but had to leave without his luggage, he told RTÉ's Claire Byrne Show on Friday.

He went back on July 4 since his luggage was still missing and he wasn't getting any answers after calling the airport.

However, Lennon still couldn't retrieve his bag after spending the entire day at the airport on July 4 because authorities were only allowing a limited number of people to enter a restricted zone for luggage. There were also security checks involved, slowing down the process.

Lennon described the entire situation as "completely chaotic."

He decided to buy a ticket so he could go directly from departures to baggage claim the next day: "I went onto the website, and I got the cheapest ticket I could," which he said was a ticket to Glasgow, Scotland, for 18 euros ($18.20.)

Lennon went back again on July 5 and managed to get his bag back — after a few hours of navigating the airport before eventually getting to the baggage claim area.

"The place was littered with bags," he said, with "thousands of them all over the place."

"I saw some of them were from June 15, I think there was even one from June 2," he added.

But Lennon wasn't the only one who took the unusual step of buying an air ticket to get his luggage back: He said he met an American on July 4 who said he had done the same thing — for €300, Lennon told the radio show.

Dublin Airport Authority (daa) told Insider doesn't handle any luggage for any airline at Dublin Airport. "Passengers' airlines or their third-party ground handling agents are responsible for the resourcing of check-in, bag drop and baggage delivery," said a daa spokesperson.

A source at Dublin Airport told RTÉ's Prime Time around 300 bags arrive on the wrong flights every day — ten times more than before the pandemic.

"We are liaising very closely with both the airlines and their ground handling companies in relation to these issues, the root of which lies in the significant staff hiring challenges that are facing all companies operating in the aviation sector currently," the daa spokesperson added.

The entire aviation industry is dealing with a messy summer travel season, with flight delays and chaos as demand has returned to pre-pandemic levels.