Delays reported at Southwest Florida International Airport

SOUTH FORT MYERS -

Several flights into and out of Southwest Florida International Airport on Monday have been delayed due to weather and air traffic control issues across the country.

It was earlier reported that an air traffic control issue was causing problems, but the FAA has since told NBC2 that any delays affecting flights at RSW are caused by weather or traffic volume.

New statement from the FAA about delays:

The traffic flow management system issue isn't causing delays.

Weather and heavy volume of flights are causing delays at some locations. If a Ft. Myers flight is delayed it's probably due to weather or volume at the destination or origination airport.

Earlier statement from the FAA about delays:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is working to correct a problem with the air traffic control management system that allows the FAA Command Center to manage traffic flow more efficiently across the country. The FAA does not use this system to track or communicate with individual flights. We are not experiencing problems with the radar, navigation or communications systems we use to handle specific flights. Monitor fly.faa.gov for real-time information on airport status. Check with the air carriers for information on specific flights.

The flight boards at RSW show several arrivals and departures are delayed, some longer than three hours. The FAA said they do not track flight delays in real-time and it would be Tuesday before they would have the number of flights affected.

You can check flights at swfia.com.

Travelers coming from Charlotte were delayed for a couple of hours and said they had no real sense of when they'd actually be on their flight.

They said the airline would update every 15 to 30 minutes and let them know they were still delayed.

"They started delaying by 30 minutes and 15 minutes and 30 minutes, and I think overall it was a little over two hours delayed," said Ava Paranjape, visiting from Memphis.

"The plane is sitting there on the runway, and they just said we're not ready to go. It's kind of frustrating to not really know what the problem is," said Dominic Tricase of Fort Myers.

Story and video:   http://www.nbc-2.com