On one of the busiest travel days of the year, the departure and arrival board at Denver International Airport was lit up like a Christmas tree, as nearly 500 flights were delayed and close to 100 were canceled Monday for bleary-eyed holiday travelers.

“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” said a volunteer greeter at the airport.

Travelers surrounded by larger-than-normal suitcases and gift bags stretched out in strange positions as they sneaked in a nap. They told The Denver Gazette that they were stranded for various reasons including bad weather and worker shortages due to the coronavirus.

“I’m over COVID!” yelled a double-masked woman who may have just learned something bad about her flight. She wouldn’t elaborate on her situation as she hustled from the information board toward the West concourse luggage carousel. “Over it!” she yelled.

Luke Carnahan and his infant son, Charlie, were less frustrated after a very long Christmas hangover that started at 6 a.m. Monday in Pittsburgh.

“We got on the plane and sat in place for a while and then they got on the loudspeaker to tell us that an airline attendant was sick. It was stressful because we didn’t have enough food for Charlie,” said Carnahan.

Too frustrated to wait the situation out, the young dad and his wife deboarded the plane, and left the airport to grab some formula for Charlie from a nearby store. They returned to the airport just in time for the replacement attendant to fly in from another city.

Jennifer Hernandez and her family, headed to Jackson, Wyoming, for a ski holiday, had a choice: Spend the night in the airport or fly to Casper and drive a rental car four and a half hours.

“Let’s hope this makes for a great story time one day,” she laughed.

The Hernandez family said their United flight was canceled because of a snowstorm, and Flight Tracker showed that Tuesday’s flights to Jackson would be flawless … so far.

Almost lost in a pile of huge suitcases, Christmas glitter and blankets was Dolly Guzman, who started her trip just after midnight in Seattle, and landed in Denver to discover that her layover flight to Salt Lake City had been canceled due to inclement weather in Utah.

“We are waiting for our room at the hotel,” Guzman said with a shrug. “And Frontier won’t pay for it. There’s nothing we can really do about it.”

She said that as they boarded in Seattle, there was only one person helping people get on the plane. “Sounds like they were having worker shortage problems.”

United Airlines acknowledged that COVID-19 is a culprit in the cluster of cancellations, telling The Denver Gazette that the airline is working hard to rebook as many people as possible to get them on their way.

“The nationwide spike in Omicron cases has had a direct impact on our flight crews and the people who run our operation,” the airline said in a statement. “As a result, we’ve unfortunately had to cancel some flights and are notifying impacted customers in advance of them coming to the airport.”

Colorado Springs fared better than Denver International Airport on Monday, with 21 delays and only one cancellation.

According to Flight Tracker, Sunday was a nightmare of a day to travel in the U.S. with 16,444 delays and 7,179 cancellations nationwide.