The New York Times and Wall Street Journal’s airline-travel columnists are echoing each other today in a warning that air travel in the U.S. is beyond screwed up this summer.

From the Times report:

Now, I could (and God help me, might) spend the rest of this summer writing about delays, cancellations and airplanes packed with people stranded without being able to get off because of bad weather, bad scheduling, bad airline management, the inability of the Federal Aviation Administration to handle growing air traffic — or a combination of the above. Each week, there are reports of long delays and stranded flights.

The Journal piece, meanwhile, begins this way:

While air travel was expected to have its share of hassles this summer, it has turned into a nightmare for many fliers. In recent weeks, travelers have been hit with long delays caused by everything from labor shortages and seasonal thunderstorms to computer snafus.

The number of flights canceled in the first 15 days of June was up a whopping 91% compared with the same period last year, and the number of flights that were excessively late — more than 45 minutes — jumped 61%, according to FlightStats.com. Overall, 70.7% of all U.S. flights arrived on time from June 1 through June 15, compared with 79% last year.

“I fly a lot, and I’ve never seen it this bad this systematically. It’s like the Italian train system,” said Nick Abbott, a vice president at networking concern Intelliden Corp. who was stuck in Philadelphia for two days after his flight on US Airways was delayed and then canceled last week.

Not a good situation…