Is Miami International Airport poised to become the Bermuda Triangle of lost luggage?

A new $215-million baggage handling system at the glitzy North Terminal is ready for service, according to airport and federal transportation officials.

Just one problem: American Airlines doesn’t want to use it.

More than five years behind schedule and double its original price, the system has spawned a fierce feud between MIA and its largest airline.

After American threatened legal action to stand its ground, the two sides met and began hammering out conditions under which American would start using the system on a trial basis, said airport director José Abreu, who is concerned that delays would drive up the cost of finishing the North Terminal. More meetings are planned this week.

The humming and clanging 14-mile network of conveyor belts, chutes, and computers that runs beneath the $3-billion terminal is the largest ever to incorporate sophisticated bomb detectors, thus simplifying security check-ins. The massive contraption can screen and move 6,400 bags an hour from the ticket counters directly to 50 boarding gates, unlike the current system which trucks bags from a central baggage shed.

Airport officials point out the new Siemens system was designed and built to American’s specifications. Among other things, it’s smart enough to figure out the next available flight if a bag misses its connection. It can even re-route a suitcase if a gate changes while the bag is moving along the conveyor belts.

Still, American fears the system — which all agree uses older technology since it took so long to finish — isn’t suited for the airline’s current operations, a fast-growing hub that hinges on whisking bags quickly between connecting flights on tight schedules.

American, which moves more than 25 million passengers a year through MIA, wants to postpone start-up to rip out the software and programming and install a new brain at an estimated $20-million to $30-million cost that would be born by American, airport officials say.

Without the upgraded software and controls, the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, which runs MIA, “would be exposing us to losses of potentially millions of dollars while simultaneously putting our joint customers through the inconvenience and disruption of their bags being lost and mishandled,’’ Tom Del Valle, American’s senior vice president of airport operations, wrote airport director Abreu on Feb. 7.

Citing a “potentially catastrophic impact’ on American’s operations, Del Valle said American, which is reorganizing under Chapter 11 of federal bankruptcy law, wrote that American was ready to go to court to block MIA and the Transportation Security Administration from forcing it to use the new system.

Abreu fired off a four-page response the next day: “We take the experience of traveling passengers at MIA very seriously, and would never intentionally take any action which would lead to an unreasonable number of lost bags.’’

Abreu reminded Del Valle that the county inherited the baggage project in 2005 when American turned over responsibility for completing the North Terminal to the county, after the project bogged down in cost overruns and construction chaos.

“The county’s contractual commitment to American is merely to finish this installation pursuant to American’s 2005 design, and without any guarantee that this system will work,’’ Abreu wrote. Even so, the airport has already doled out $30 million for changes requested by American to meet its “evolving operational needs,’’ Abreu added.