This is a shot of the FAA's flight delay map that I took a few minutes ago. The orange bubbles mean that "traffic destined to this airport is being delayed at its departure point. Check your departure airport to see if your flight may be affected," according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
CNN just posted that a computer problem has meant that flight plans normally processed near Atlanta are instead being done near Salt Lake City, the cause of the delays.
UPDATE, 1:05 p.m.: The LAX real-time flight status website is showing a sprinkling of delays on departures, mostly to cities in the Midwest or East Coast. Many other flights are listed as being on time.
UPDATE, 1:10 p.m.: Here's a link to the Associated Press story on The Times website. AP quotes an FAA spokesperson saying the number of flights affected is unknown, but no communication has been lost with any planes.
UPDATE, 1:45 p.m.: A very useful website to check flights on your cell phone is Flightstats. Here's the link to their mobile site: http://mobile.flightstats.com. The page works very well on my iPhone and should also work with Blackberrys and other PDAs.
--Steve Hymon
