Air Travel Problems

Unit 3

The popularity of air travel has been increasing in the past few decades. There is a wide variety of reasons that have contributed to the increase in popularity including convenience and speed. But there is a huge gap between the glamour and comfort promised in airline advertisements and the reality of crowded terminals, endless waiting, limited legroom and inedible food served at unlikely times of day (or night).

The problems can generally be divided into three groups:

1. Problems connected with delays. Bad weather, strikes and a surge of vacation traffic often result in a large number of flight cancellations and widespread delays, which can be really frustrating.

2. Discomfort travellers experience due to sitting next to children or someone who talks non-stop, standing in long queues at check in or jet lag. Travelling across several time zones disturbs normal body rhythm and produces many physical and psychological stresses on the body. And while jet lag rarely causes any severe problems, a few days of discomfort may take place before your body adjusts to the new time zone.

3. Poor service is able to disrupt any trip as it results in such serious nuisances as lost or delayed luggage, poor quality food, dirty toilets, and overbooking. Overbooking is a practice when due to commercial pressure an airline sells more tickets taking into consideration that there are always no-show passengers. Occasionally, they miscalculate. The more popular a route, the more likely the flight is to be oversold. As a result, you can be denied a seat on a plane when you have a confirmed reservation.

Although some airlines are attempting to respond to customer dissatisfaction

by providing more room for their passengers and better in-flight service,

there is still increasing concern that some airlines are trying to save money at the expense of customer comfort and safety.

Answer the following questions:

1. What kinds of problems do people face while travelling by air?

2. What is jet lag?

3. What is overbooking?

4. What irritates you most when you are travelling by air?

5. Which is the best/worst airline you have ever flown? Why?

6. In what ways do people behave badly when flying? What are the reasons for passengers behaving badly?

7. Have you ever seen or heard about someone misbehaving on a plane? What happened?

Learn the vocabulary and speak on the topic:

To cancel / delay a flight flight cancellations / flight delays

To go / be on strike

To have little (leg)room

To be cooped up / kept in cramped conditions in an aircraft

To experience poor service

Long queues at check-in

To suffer from jet lag / to be or feel jet- lagged

To be frustrated by sth

Frustration / irritability / dissatisfaction

To take a First/Business/Economy class flight

A short haul flight / a long haul flight

To have specific seating requests

To want an aisle / a window seat

To confirm a reservation

To be fully booked

To oversell / overbook a flight

To disrupt a trip

Air rage incidents

To behave badly / to misbehave

Disruptive and dangerous in-flight behaviour

To be rude to the flight attendants

To blame alcohol for ….

To be at fault

To be down to sth (alcohol) / to be alcohol/smoking related

To have no-smoking policy / to ban on-board smoking

To call for stiffer penalties against the offenders

To contribute to the problem

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16