American Working To Recover From Flight Delays

American Airlines said it is working to get customers in the air after technical problems caused it to halt flights to three of its hub airports.

American experienced hundreds of delays as it stopped takeoffs to Dallas-Fort Worth, Chicago O'Hare and Miami airports for nearly two hours.

The carrier has fixed the technical problems, which it said were caused by "connectivity issues," that started at noon Eastern, a company spokesman said. International flights and service on US Airways were not affected.

Over 500 flights on American Airlines were delayed and five cancelled, according to flight-tracker FlightAware.

The flight groundings follow several high-profile computer problems that US carriers have faced in recent months. Industry consultants say the impact of computer disruptions will keep growing as airlines automate an increasing chunk of operations, outfit their planes with Wifi and distribute boarding passes on smartphones.

In April, American Airlines delayed flights when an iPad application used by pilots to view airport maps malfunctioned.

United Airlines in June halted flights when it discovered a problem arising from its dispatch software. And in July a router error locked United out of its reservations records and blocked check-in and boarding.