April 17--A nationwide computer system error shut down American Airlines operations for several hours Tuesday, delaying and canceling flights for thousands of passengers at Los Angeles International Airport.

The issue, which began in the morning, was a glitch with American's reservations system and was not related to the explosives attack Monday at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, American spokeswoman Mary Frances Fagan said in an emailed statement.

The system was fixed by 1:30 p.m. But by then, the damage had been done. American canceled more than 700 flights and delayed more than 765, including many at LAX, according to the website, Flightaware.com . Even once the system was back up, some flights were delayed for three hours or longer. (A 4:15 p.m. flight to New York was delayed for 2 hours 48 minutes.)

Elsewhere in the Los Angeles area, American canceled one flight to Dallas from Ontario International Airport and delayed another one for nearly four hours. It does not fly to Long Beach or Burbank airports.

Lines in the airline's LAX Terminal 4 were lengthy, with travelers saying they had been waiting for two hours to speak with an American employee. The airline was giving out hotel vouchers and asking passengers to remain patient. Officials were also recommending travelers call a toll-free number for rebooking. The lines began to move more quickly after about 1:30 p.m.

"It's a little frustrating," said Brandon Curry, 54, a geologist from Champaign, Ill. "We just don't know what's going on. There's a lack of knowledge. It's all word of mouth. "

Los Angeles World Airports police, which provides security at the airport, was monitoring the terminal for unruly passengers, airport spokesman Nancy Castles said. But there appeared to be no problems, with passengers quietly waiting in lines hundreds of people long.

"It's horrible," said Karen Winston, 52, of Shreveport, La. "I'm tired. My legs hurt. I've been standing up since early this morning. "

Another traveler, Karen Barnett of Maryland, took a video on her mobile phone of the entire line, walking from the front to back. She said she counted more than 1,000 people waiting to speak with an American agent.

"It was to put it on Facebook, so people would believe it," she said. "Honestly, right now, I am wishing I was on Southwest. "

Since airline officials expected delays to continue all day, American was offering several options to travelers, Fagan said. Among them, they could choose to fly on a different airline, with American paying any fare difference, they could make ticket changes without penalty, or they could receive a refund.

"We apologize to our customers and our people for this inconvenience," Fagan said.

Airline computer outages are actually somewhat common. A United Airlines system failure in August 2012 impacted flights and shut down the carrier's website for several hours. And in October 2012, Alaska Airlines was affected by a network outage involving its ticketing, reservations and check-in networks.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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