A story of what air travel has become

"We need meal vouchers!"

When you hear a man shouting this at a gate in the airport of a major city, you know something has gone terribly wrong.

After Monday's disastrous day of air travel, which left many stranded and others spending 12, 24 and 36 hours trying to get home, I'm beginning to wonder if flying is really worth it anymore.

The phrase "hop on a flight" is now extinct. Traveling via airline has become an exhausting, frustrating and often times humiliating process.

I was in Las Vegas on Monday. My mother and I got to McCarran International Airport at 10 a.m. for a 11:59 a.m. flight to Chicago. I didn't leave - on a flight to Phoenix - until 8:45 p.m.

My first flight was canceled because the pilot's second-in-command hadn't shown up. He wasn't on another flight, he just wasn't there. No one knew where he was or what happened to him.

This news came after an initial hour-and-a-half delay, as we were told that the crew would be arriving shortly. Note to airlines: If you don't know where your pilots are, that's a problem.

As we lined up to book another flight, a sort of comedy of errors ensued in which we made it to the front of the line only to have the airline employees leave.

By the time everyone had made new arrangements it was three hours later. The day was gone.

Next, my mother and I were waiting on standby for a 4:11 p.m. flight that was delayed several hours due to weather in Chicago.

In one of the cruelest acts of airline mistreatment I've seen, they began boarding the plane only to stop after a few minutes. "Due to weather in Chicago, the flight has been delayed for another hour."

This is when the man began shouting about meal vouchers. We'd been stuck in this airport for roughly eight hours and it was beginning to feel more like a refugee camp than a travel hub.

This is what air travel has become. You can almost double the estimated time of a flight because of the hassles before and after, the delays, and the times when one of the pilots doesn't show up.

As I waited nearly 12 hours to even begin my journey home, I couldn't help but fantasize about the relative ease of a cross-country bus trip.

Stefan Schumacher

Des Plaines