Que Idiota.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Authorities evacuated LaGuardia Airport's Central Terminal for several hours Saturday after a man with a bag containing wires and a battery entered the airport, a Port Authority spokesman said.

The man is in custody, and authorities have allowed passengers back into the terminal, Port Authority spokesman John Kelly said.

Kelly said there were delays at the airport hours after the incident.

A law enforcement official close to the investigation identified the man as Scott McGann, 32, of New York. He had tickets on a United Airlines flight to Chicago, as well as connecting flights that would have ended in Oakland, California.

The law enforcement source said the suspect approached a security checkpoint in the Central Terminal carrying a backpack.

"Affixed to the backpack in plain view were two six-volt square batteries taped together with wires protruding from the battery," the source said.

"McGann was told by Port Authority police not to move. He didn't comply and looked to try to push a switch and nothing happened," the source said.

The backpack also contained unspecified electronic devices and personal items, the source said.

McGann has three prior arrests in the New York area, the source said. The most recent involved June charges of tampering with evidence and resisting arrest. He was also arrested twice in 2008, the source said.

New York Police Department's Deputy Commissioner for Public Information Paul Browne had told CNN earlier that the man, whom he did not identify, raised the suspicions of a Transportation Security Administration employee because he appeared "intoxicated."

Kelly, who also didn't identify the man, had said he "was just acting crazy," and offered no further details.

The city's bomb squad was called in to examine the device, Browne said, and determined that it was not dangerous.

"It was a hoax device," he said.

Asked whether the man had said anything about a bomb, Browne said, "Clearly, it appeared he wanted people to think that's what he had."

Authorities evacuated the terminal after 5:20 a.m., and allowed passengers back in to all areas except Concourse C by midmorning, Kelly said. The concourse was reopened shortly before 11 a.m., according to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Holly Baker. iReport: Watch crowds start moving back into the terminal

Authorities had stopped flights from taking off or landing at the airport, but by a little after 9 a.m., flights were slowly resuming, Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Holly Baker said.

Baker said flights were expected to be back to normal in a few hours.

It was not known how many passengers were in the terminal at the time of the evacuation, although scores of them with luggage lined the roads outside the airport after the terminal and entrances were closed.

Central Terminal is one of four terminals in the airport, which is in the borough of Queens. It is about eight miles from Manhattan.

The incident disrupted travel plans for many passengers, including CNN iReporter Jose Ojeda, 24, who had been sitting on the tarmac on a plane headed to Chicago, Illinois, when the evacuation was ordered.

"We were all ready to go," Ojeda, of Bronx, New York, said of his flight, which he said had been scheduled to leave at 6:10 a.m.

"They didn't make any announcement other than, 'You need to evacuate,'" he said. "I thought it was standard procedure, but then once we got out of the plane, they kept pushing us back and back, out of the terminal [and] out of the actual airport."