(CNN) — A telecommunication outage caused Federal Aviation Administration air traffic controllers in Dallas to lose radar and some communications Friday afternoon, leading to flights being stopped at the area’s airports.

After a virtual shutdown of airports across the city, some flights were allowed to resume after 3:30 p.m. CT. Operations at Dallas Fort Worth and Dallas Love Field have since returned to normal, the FAA said in a statement Saturday afternoon.

The issue stemmed from “two cut fiber optic cables,” affecting data used by radar and other systems, American Airlines said in a memo shared with CNN Saturday, citing the FAA.

The FAA said the disruption was due to “multiple failures” in a data communication service provided by a local telecommunications company, it said in a statement Saturday. Additionally, the FAA said a contractor “failed to ensure that redundancies in the system functioned properly,” according to the statement.

“This is a clear example of the FAA’s outdated infrastructure and underscores the urgent need to modernize our air traffic control systems,” the FAA said Saturday.

Air traffic controllers rely on telecommunications lines from local phone companies to connect their facilities, including the airport towers and the Terminal Radar Approach Control, which handles flights arriving or departing airports.

“We’ve lost all radar and phone communications,” the controller in the Love Field Air Traffic Control tower said in audio recorded by LiveATC.net. “I’m not departing anybody until we can get a system setup. We have no coms with approach right now.”

“Approach wanted to pass on to you to stop all departures. They can’t get a hold of you. They are having some com issues, I guess,” a Southwest pilot told the Love Field tower.

“Yeah, I think the entire Metroplex just went down,” the controller responded on the radio. “We got a hold of somebody.”

On the other side of the city, controllers were busy shutting air traffic at DFW.

“I am currently stopped on all departures,” the tower controller told pilots lined up to take off. “This (also) happened a couple of days ago where somebody cut a line and we lost everything, so bear with me… I have no idea how long we are going to be stopped.”

There were over 430 cancellations and 580 delays at DFW, along with over 190 delays at Love Field as of Friday evening, according to the website FlightAware.

“We just kept getting delayed, delayed,” Passenger Krysta Wagner told CNN’s Lorenzo Ferrigno as she waited in line to rebook at DFW. “They let us know that there was an air traffic control issue and there was just too much delay, so we’re going to miss our layover.”

Passenger Kevin Hensley gave up getting home to Boston tonight after standing in line for more than a half hour.

“There’s actually about it looks like about another half hour to wait,” he said. “I have a flight tomorrow morning. I’m just going to take that.”

Marion Anson-Perchal from Wichita Falls, Texas was going to Florida, but her flight was canceled.

“Hopefully they can rebook us and get us to Miami before 12 tomorrow, or we are going to miss our cruise,” she said.

DFW is the third-busiest airport in the world and a major hub for American Airlines. Southwest Airlines operates a hub at Love Field.

“As the FAA and its provider work to resolve the issue, American has issued a travel alert allowing customers whose travel plans are affected to rebook without change fees,” the airline said in a statement posted to X.

American Airlines was hit disproportionately hard by the outages, with Dallas being one of its hubs. The airline canceled more than 530 flights Friday and another 160 Saturday, according to the memo shared with CNN. American said the FAA’s efforts to speed up departures Friday night were “too little, too late,” according to the memo, with the cancellations, delays, diversions and missed connections ultimately affecting more than 100,000 customers.

American’s COO David Seymour said the airline has spoken with the telecom companies at the root of the issues and said he is “disappointed” with their lack of urgency.

However, American Airlines warned ripple effects could continue to carry over into Saturday. The airline said while the FAA and telecom companies were able to fix the “primary capabilities,” some “redundancy systems remain offline,” according to the memo.

Southwest Airlines also relaxed rules for passengers wanting to fly on different days or get a refund.

“We are resuming normal operations and will do our best to minimize further delays,” airline spokesman Lynn Lunsford said.

Southwest’s normal operations resumed Saturday and ultimately the airline said it only canceled one flight on Friday, according to a statement.

Earlier this year, problems with a phone company telecommunications line between Long Island, New York and Philadelphia caused Air traffic controllers there to repeatedly lose contact with flights approaching or departing Newark Liberty International Airport.

On April 28, when the existing cable failed, radios were silenced for 30 seconds and radar scopes went dark for 90 seconds. Five FAA employees working in the facility took 45-days of trauma leave, leading to thousand of delayed flights. Three more outages occurred since then, before a new fiber optic cable became operational.

Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is asking Congress to support a plan for a brand-new air traffic control system, which will cost billions of dollars.

“It’s a substantial piece of work and will take a substantial amount of money,” Duffy said earlier this year.

CNN’s Sarah Dewberry, Lorenzo Ferrigno and Elise Hammond contributed to this report, which was updated with more information from the FAA, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.

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