I hate flying.

I hate getting to the airport entirely too early. I hate taking off my shoes, emptying my pockets and pulling my laptop out of my backpack. I hate it when my flight is delayed.

And I especially hate it when my baggage does not come on the carousel after going through the ordeal of a long flight.

Two weeks ago, I went to a conference at Cornell University. Flying back after a long but productive conference, I just wanted to grab my bags and sleep on the bus on the way back to Memorial Union. In the baggage claim area, I was listening to some of the passengers who were also waiting for their bags. I knew it was not going to be promising; this airline was having serious computer problems due to daylight savings. After half an hour, I gave up on my bags showing up. Seeing the line out the door of the baggage claim office, and how incredibly slow it was going, I was clearly going to miss the bus if I waited. I got the phone number for the airline's lost baggage line and called up the airline's central baggage claim office. That is when I decided that I really hate flying.

After waiting 20 minutes, I was routed to a call center located somewhere in Latin America. Needless to say, someone 4,000 miles away was not going to be exceedingly helpful in finding my luggage in Chicago. After six days, four hours waiting on hold on five separate occasions and becoming a progressively angrier customer with call center employees, I decided to drive to O'Hare to find my bags in person. Well, at O'Hare I found out that they were flown up to Madison. The employees at the Chicago Baggage Claim Office were able to answer a question that a call center could not. Despite the drive and the tolls in Illinois, I was thankful that my luggage was not stuck somewhere between Syracuse and Chicago.

On the drive back to Madison, I had a couple of hours to contemplate the drama of finding my lost bags. Why did the airline have no idea that my baggage was in Madison, and why did I have to wait six days to find that out? Why does this airline have connectivity problems between the airport and the call center? Do airline companies truly know what is being loaded onto their aircrafts?

I was not treated nearly as badly as the Jet Blue passengers, who were stranded on their plane for 10 hours at New York's JFK airport on Valentine's Day. Due to that fiasco, Jet Blue compensated the stranded passengers and announced a Passenger Bill of Rights. I also received some compensation after I told this airline that I would never fly with them again.

There is now legislation being drafted in Congress for a Passenger Bill of Rights, and groups, such as the Traveler Insider, have created extensive proposals to protect the rights of airline passengers. The airlines' trade group, the Air Transport Association of America, has resisted such proposals in the past, stating that the regulation is unnecessary because the airlines will comply voluntarily. Considering that in 2005 an American Airlines jet was stranded in Austin for eight hours and that a Northwest Airlines jet did not deplane for seven hours after landing in Detroit in 1999, I would be leery of the airlines cleaning up their act by themselves.

While these high-profile cases receive widespread media attention, there is a larger overall problem with the airline industry: terrible service. I can drive from Madison to Nashville faster than I can fly, due to long lines, a layover and an unpredictable wait at the baggage carousel. If there is a problem with a delay or lost luggage, you probably will be talking with someone on another continent. While call center representatives are trying to be as helpful as they can, I expect poor customer service because they are so far away and use a computer system without necessary information. Bad service is something that I expect, along with taking off my shoes and checking my carry-on for toothpaste.

During our travels over spring break, we will be hoping for our flights to leave on time and our baggage to be waiting for us when we get there. Some of us will unfortunately discover first hand why this country so desperately needs a Passenger Bill of Rights.

Jeff Carnes ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in linguistics.