Let's be honest, airport travel can be a little rough. But Alaska Airlines tries to alleviate some of those woes with, of all things, pancakes.

The airline has tried to silence the growling stomachs of harried travelers with its "Pancake Printer," a device that spurts out pancakes like a printer does paper. They are now in every Alaska Airlines "Board Room" lounges, located in airports in Seattle, L.A., Anchorage and Portland, Oregon.

The printer is the creation of an inventor/designer named Marek Szymanski. It's not a 3D food printer or Arduino-controlled device, as many might assume in this tech-crazed age. Rather, it appears to function via a pair of upper and lower hot plates that heat batter and then eject the final product through a conveyer belt system -- all at a rate of 180 pancakes an hour.

According to an Alaska Airlines blog post, the printers are not exclusive to the flyer. There are actually 7,000 of the machines spitting out flapjacks around the world in various locations you'd expect people to be stuffing their faces -- casinos, college cafes, hotel restaurants and more. AA also notes, "Rumor has it, certain frequent fliers even schedule their trips to the airport around the pancake machine's hours, which have been expanded to accommodate its popularity."