On Nov. 16, frustrated travellers across Canada were putting up with long lineups and short tempers as a glitch with Air Canada's computer reservation system delayed flights and played havoc with the travel plans of thousands of passengers.

At Pearson International Airport in Toronto, the country's largest, people waiting in a line that snaked through the facility's cavernous Terminal One took the delay with a mixture of defeated resignation and anger.

"It's the usual Air Canada - they don't tell you anything, just stand in line and wait," said John Deluca, 50, bound for San Antonio for a five-day business seminar.

"I'm fed up with this. It's always the same story no matter where and I'm tired of it."

The problem occurred at around 4 a.m., when the system experienced a communications error between the airline's central reservation system and computer systems at airports across Canada, said Toronto general manager John Segaert.

"This problem has caused us not to be able to print boarding passes," Segaert said.

"It's recovered now. It's really just a communications error between our reservation system and the airport locale."

While the problem with the system had been fixed, it caused flight delays of between 30 and 60 minutes, Segaert added. The airline predicted operations would be back to normal by the afternoon on Nov. 16.

Deluca said he was appalled that in "this day and age" there isn't a backup system in the event of computer problems, and said he's going to consider flying out of Buffalo in future.

Phoenix-bound Todd Fuller missed his flight and said he was told to re-book.

Lee Anderson had a ticket for the same flight. Looking exasperated, Anderson, 50, handled the situation with sarcasm.

"I just got up this morning and thought, 'I hope there's a delay so I can stand in a line up all day, hope the flight's cancelled'."

The Greater Toronto Airport Authority, which oversees the operations of the airport, was handing out bottles of water to people waiting in line and stuffed toy bears to children.

Despite the frustration and angry words, the massive line-up of backlog passengers was for the most part orderly and chatted quietly.

"Passengers have been great, a very typical Canadian response - understanding, patient," said Scott Armstong, spokesman for the airport authority.

"People recognize there's a delay, but if there is a delay, so be it."

There were a few Air Canada flights that left on time, but a departure and arrival boards showed numerous delays. A recorded message telling passengers there was a computer problem causing delays would play every few minutes.

In Halifax, the computer glitch also caused delays at the Robert L. Stanfield International Airport.

Airport spokesman Peter Spurway said several departing Air Canada flights were delayed in the morning on Nov. 16, though it wasn't clear how many flights were affected or how long the delays were. Other flights arriving from Toronto were affected as well.

Angela Mah, a spokeswoman with the airline based in Vancouver, said the biggest problems were at the airline's Toronto operations.

"Of course because Pearson is our hub and has the greatest volume of our flights that is where our impact was felt the most," she said. "Flights are departing across our network, albeit there are some delays."