This paper addresses the formation control problem for fleets of autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). The solution is based on the virtual leader approach, with the main goal of designing a control system to cope with the inter-vehicle communication problems, especially significant in underwater environments. The use of kinematic relations allows the linearization of the AUV dynamics maintaining its turning capacities. The control strategy consists of a feedback H₂/H_∞ controller in combination with a feedforward controller, which makes it possible to deal with delays and packets dropouts while ensuring a good formation control performance.