Delta Air Lines, one of the largest US carriers, temporarily grounded its domestic flights in the United States on Sunday over a computer glitch that did not impact planes already in the air.

"Delta teams are expeditiously working to fix a systems outage that has resulted in departure delays for flights on the ground," the Atlanta, Georgia-based airline said in a statement.

"Flights in the air remain unaffected. Delta apologizes to customers for the inconvenience."

The Federal Aviation Administration said in an advisory issued shortly after 0100 GMT that the stoppage was due to "automation issues."

Last week, a computer problem forced United Airlines to ground all of its domestic flights for about an hour.