The 29 hour trip home - another nightmare airline travel tale

Oh those travel tales... they just get better all the time! Here's a story about a trip that a colleague of mine experienced this past week-end, he describes it as his nightmare outline (for the 2008 record book):
- 10 hours in the air yesterday
- hour circling JFK (3pm-4pm)
- hour flying to Syracuse (4pm-5pm)
- Stuck on airport runway, waiting (5pm-9pm) Just when you thought it was getting ridiculous, they made them sit on the runway in Syracuse for something like SIX hours. Nobody could get off the plane.
- Flew to JFK last night (9pm-10pm), keep in mind they're pushing 18 hours on-board or something. All JFK flights were finished.
- Then spent FOUR MORE HOURS in line (10pm-2am), trying to arrange alternate transpo. - When he finally got the counter, they told him the next flight would be at NOON TODAY (Monday). Four hours for ridiculous news like that.
- explaining that they're making everyone sit there until noon.
- Then as of 4:30am EST, taking a cab to Penn Station to (at least try to) finish off the trip with a three hour train ride to BWI.
- Total nightmare, over 29 straight hours stuck in either a plane, cab, train, or waiting area---all as a result of airport delays/problems, etc. A new record, at least for 2008!

Let's all keep this in mind the next time we're whining about a 90 minute layover.