(AP) - A week after authorities exposed a terrorist plot to bomb Kennedy Airport, flight delays of several hours left some passengers fearful.

Pat Maio said, "everyone's kind of edgy," at the JFK terminal where his departure for Atlanta had been delayed for more than four hours. He added, "the explanations are real vague. Immediately you think the worst."

Maio was among thousands of passengers coping with delays and cancellations after a cascading computer failure in the nation's air-traffic control system caused severe flight delays that hit New York airports hard.

The scene at Kennedy was chaotic, Maio said, with the line from the terminal's bar stretching for 50 feet as passengers waited more than 2 1/2 hours for arriving flights.

At LaGuardia Airport arriving flights ran nearly four hours behind on average.

An FAA spokesman said backups were so bad, air-traffic controllers temporarily stopped LaGuardia-bound flights from taking off in other parts of the country to keep the skies over Queens from filling with too many planes.