TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan Airlines (JAL) said on Thursday it was hit by a cyberattack that caused delays to some domestic and international flights.

The attack began at 7:24 a.m. (2224 GMT) and affected the company's internal and external systems, JAL said. The company said it temporarily shut down a router that was causing system malfunctions and also suspended ticket sales for flights departing on Thursday.

ANA Holdings, Japan's other major air carrier, saw no signs of an attack on its systems, a spokesperson said.

Earlier this week, American Airlines briefly grounded all flights for an hour, disrupting travel for thousands on Christmas Eve, due to a technical glitch involving its network hardware.

(Reporting by Mariko Katsumura, Kantaro Komiya, Maki Shiraki, and Rocky Swift; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and Muralikumar Anantharaman)