More recently with Covid checks in place, I think they have specified arriving 2:30 before departure, which of course is meaningless for CIA earliest departures. In any case, with so many flights congested together with a shorter check-in window (e.g. 1:30 for the 06:00 flight) and no proper queuing of passengers by departure time, e.g. some 06:00 could be far behind in the queue due to 07:00 or later departure passengers also rushing in to check-in early (rightfully too to avoid stress), it is just pure risk. A queue is a queue regardless of departure time, and one couldn't possibly jump it, which I think is the root cause of all the troubles in absence of Ryanair having the capacity to comfortably clear the queue promptly. The last moment realisation that there are still passengers not checked-in close to flight departure times, and sending them to a separate dedicated (but slower) queue causes even more chaos. I also saw a lot of side-ways conversations among check-in agents and the only time the one on the dedicated queue showed some urgency was when he (without empathy) informed the 06:00 passenger in the queue that the flight had already closed. Is it lack of motivation? Or financial incentives from extracting extra revenues? Something is definitely off from what I observed there!

Can't help but feel it's all on purpose, yet another high-cost trap to compensate for the low-cost flight!