You may have read my previous rant about a cross-country flight that set a new low in comfort and customer service. While I didn’t think it possible, that terrible record has been bested. Seattle to Philly had nothing on Philly to New York.

My step-mom Joan decided to leave my father home with the Yankees last week and visit Rehoboth. Since we didn’t want Joan driving the distance alone, we suggested a flight from White Plains, New York to Philadelphia, where we would pick her up. I’d taken that very round trip in reverse last June and apparently there was a glitch in the system because both flights were on time and without incident.

Here, the similarity ends. When leaving New York, Joan endured a one hour flight that was more than three hours late. Reason? Weather, somewhere in the continental United States in the last 36 hours.

On the following Monday, after a wonderful weekend, Joan and I headed back to the Philadelphia airport for the departure leg of the journey. Leaving the car in Short Term Parking at 11 a.m., we figured I might not make it back for "first half hour $4" but I’d certainly make it before an hour cost me 8 bucks.

We crossed from the parking lot to the departure area and discovered we were at U.S. Air Terminal B and not U.S. Air Express, Terminal F. Dammit. However, a woman behind the ticket counter said, "You can take a bus to your terminal, but we’ll check your suitcase here." How nice.

I was heaving the bag onto the scale when another, quite frantic employee rushed at us whispering, "NO! Don’t do it! We’re having baggage issues!" We snatched the bag back from lost horizons and schlepped it with us toward the shuttle to Terminal F.

The bus ride was so long I thought we were nearing White Plains. But it finally delivered us to the very last door in the entire six-terminal airport, a good 5-K from Short Term Parking. A few more yards and we would have been on the expressway to the Liberty Bell.

In the right place at the right time at last, we stared at the Departure screen, found the flight number and saw the throbbing words CANCELLED. CANCELLED. It seemed so, well, final. Joan and I exchanged helpless glances and headed for the ticketing desk.

"Our flight’s been cancelled, what now?" I asked.

"Wait," the agent said, dismissively.

"How long?" I questioned.

"Until we can get you on another flight. Looks like 4:30," he responded, head down as if we’d been vaporized.

"Will I be able to get a refund on the ticket if I decide to drive to Amtrak at Wilmington?" I asked.

"Nope," said the dope, "our obligation is just to get you on the next available flight. And that’s 4:30. But you can check your luggage now."

I looked around to see if another employee was going to freak out and throw herself in front of the scale to stop me from checking the bag. No crisis worker intervened, so bye bye suitcase.

"Can I ask why the flight was cancelled?" I inquired.

"Operational Decision."

They decided not to operate? Granted, there can’t be throngs of people anxious to suffer modern day air travel for a measly one hour flight, so the flight must have been cancelled due to a shortage of masochists.

I sighed and prepared to move on. But Joan, having stood by demurely and quietly this whole time, addressed the agent.

"Aren’t you even sorry?"

Way to go, Joan. The pompous, patronizing ticketing agent in this, the City of Brotherly Love, stammered some kind of answer as we turned heel on the heel and left. On our exit we spied a bank of "Courtesy Phones." I bet not.

That the next flight was just under five hours away was awful enough, but thanks to any number of terrorist networks our airports are now hermetically sealed. No one without a boarding pass can enter any part of the airport where they dispense books, souvenirs, food or, as was becoming increasingly attractive, something to drink.

"Let’s take that shuttle back to the Marriott at Terminal A," I suggested.

We stood at the curb and a bus passed without stopping. We flagged another and it too, whooshed by. Turns out that the shuttle only goes one way. Getting back from F to A is not their problem.

So we hiked the U.S. Air Express 5-K. Did I tell you it was ninety degrees out? As it happens, every terminal from F to A had wall-mounted, well advertised Automatic External Defibrillators, just in case. Airport humor.

We crossed the Marriott finish line, with both of us schvitzing, panting and in serious need of adult beverages. Luckily, the restaurant was cool while we tried to get calm and collected. Spending a few extra hours together was a lovely gift, but it galled us to realize that we could be approaching New York’s skyline by now if we’d just kept driving.

After a deliberately leisurely lunch, we boarded the shuttle yet again and headed for effing Terminal F. Although it was only 2:30 p.m., Joan opted to go through security to the gate so she could finish a book and I could get home.

Naturally, some of her time was chewed up creeping in line for the X-ray machines, going barefoot, getting searched and generally being treated like a woman with explosives in her shampoo.

Concurrently, I dragged myself back to Terminal A, a schlep made worse by rising temperatures. En route I spied an air-conditioned van with the words Homeland Security Working Dogs on it and longed to crawl in for a nap. With airport security at Code Orange I’d be quite willing to help sniff luggage with the pack.

Finally back at short-term parking, where I had been for the long term, I had to pay an astronomical ransom for my vehicle. With rush hour approaching, traffic crawled, my patience ebbed, and I was still outside of Smyrna at dinner time. Hell, I could have been to New York, had a knish, and been back again by this time.

And then I hit Route One at Nassau, where, thanks to DelDot I sat in bumper to bumper traffic for another excruciating hour. I can hear the DelDot conversation now: "Let’s close two lanes of Route One in August so we can drive Fay Jacobs and anybody else who cares about tourism completely nuts."

As it turned out, Joan’s plane didn’t leave Philly until after 5 o’clock and she arrived in New York to discover that—ta da!— her luggage didn’t. I wish I’d had money on that.

So this is air travel 2007, brought to you by a merger of Corporate America and Jihad terrorists: F.U. Inc. Together they’ve replaced Fly the Friendly Skies with Apocalypse Now. Fasten your seatbelts. We’re in for a bumpy time.