The flight was delayed, again. Why, no one knew. Under “Reason for delay,” the sign board helpfully declared, “Flight delayed.” First they blamed weather, then lack of a crew. Yet the ticker kept counting down the minutes to boarding. With three to go, there was still no plane.

That recent scene summarizes the Kafkaesque state of flying these days – a nasty web of delays, missed connections, denials, cancellations, lost or damaged luggage and deaf ears. No wonder the rate of consumer complaints is up 60 percent.

Events two weeks ago offered one reason for the meltdown. It seems the Federal Aviation Administration has gotten so pally with airline officials, it ignored potential safety problems. Its managers allegedly intercepted staffers trying to enforce safety rules.

After finding mechanics hadn’t done the required safety tests, United Airlines grounded all its Boeing 777 jets and canceled dozens of flights, following hundreds of cancellations by other airlines in recent weeks.

Such abuse isn’t surprising when there aren’t enough FAA inspectors, so the government lets airlines inspect themselves. After safety problems turned up at Southwest Airlines, the FAA acknowledged inspectors hadn’t adequately followed up on inspections there. Meanwhile, citing rising fuel costs, ATA and Aloha have declared bankruptcy.

All this has forced passengers to fend for themselves under some absurd circumstances. It was a comedy of errors for my colleague, Sandy Walter, and her husband, John, heading home to Des Moines, Iowa, from Sacramento, Calif. After being delayed three hours, their flight from Chicago was canceled because there was no crew.

An earlier Des Moines-bound flight had also been canceled, leaving several hundred passengers trying to outrun each other to get on the list for the first available one the next day. The airline was offering no lodging. So the Walters and a couple of strangers rented a car.

On the highway, the car hit a raccoon and both car and critter died. Eventually, a cab took them to the Moline airport to wait for the Hertz counter to open so they could get another car. Instead of Monday at 8 p.m., they were home about 5 a.m. Tuesday. After many calls to a customer-service rep in China, their luggage was dumped off 11 hours later.

My sons and I ended up in Newark, N.J., overnight as we tried to fly back from Cancun, Mexico, to Omaha, Neb., via Houston during spring break. Our connection to Omaha from Houston had been canceled, and subsequent ones were full for several days, so we were rerouted to Newark to catch a connection from there. When the flight into Newark was late, and we missed the last connection, we were handed a hotel voucher. We had called the hotel to confirm, but when our van load of marooned passengers reached the hotel, the manager ordered us all out, yelling that his place was full, and we were blocking his doorway.

The trip home took 30 hours door to door.

You can’t reason with the beleaguered reps, nor believe their excuse when they shrug off responsibility for nonexistent lodging or lost or damaged luggage. “Are the clothes falling out?” demanded a Continental rep in Omaha when I showed her my dented suitcase, whose handle could no longer be pulled up.

The recently stranded include White House press corps and a bride in her wedding dress. Model Naomi Campbell lashed out and was arrested in London after her luggage was lost. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin missed a cousin’s funeral when his flight was canceled. It must be a real crisis if even fame, fortune and political clout can’t guarantee results.

The situation cries out for a passenger bill of rights. A court has just ruled that states can’t do it. Congress should. Enough delays, already!