G narrative tenses, past perfect continuous; so / such...that V air travel P iiregular past forms 1 READING 1 Read the back cover of a book about air travel. Can you guess the answers to any of the questions? AirBabylon ae Corea eos Scored fee ois ‘Why can you sometimes smell roast chicken in plane wen they are serving you sh? 'b Now quickly read the extract from Air Babylon. Did you guess correctly? ¢ Now read the extract again. Complete each paragraph with one of the sentences below. Be careful, as there is one sentence you do not need to use. ‘A Wheelchairs area big problem for us. B It flies into the engine, totally destroying itself and the machinery € rif never forget the last time it happened to me. D So you can see, it really does pay to bbe nice to the person at the desk. This is mainly because the transport times between the terminals are so tight. F And, as every light attendant knows, a snoring plane is happy plane. 4. Do you believe everything you read in the extract? PVC A REC RSC a From Ai-BabylnbyIogen Eduard ones A» BABYLON Depending on what computer sytem the airine uses, checkin staf can talk to each other va simultaneous email So when they seem tobe taking avery long time to type your rather short name into the computer, they ae probably sending one of ther colleagues a message ~ usually about you or about someone inthe ‘queue behind you. These messages range from ‘Have you seen ths incredibly good looking woman / man? to ‘Ive got a realy dificult passenger here ~ does anyone hhavea seat nest toa screaming child?” 11] wt aneatic arse onatareswidmenstiesenet Ee supposed to serve passengers if they tart geting noisy, but some aircrew think that it you give them enough to eat and drink, they wll eventually fll sleep and gve you no trouble at all. 2 [| Tat’ the reason, of course, why we like totum the heating up halfway through a fight Some airports are notorious for losing passengets’ luggage. Heathrow has 2 poor ‘eputaion ~ mos airports lose about two in every thousand bags, but Heathrow loses eighty per thousand, which means for every five hundred people who checkin, forty ‘won't get their bags or suitcases at the other end! 5 (When the airport is busy, which it ays is, there sso much baggage being transported between the terminals ‘and so litle time todo it that a lot ofthe transferred luggage gets eft behind 44 Not only is there always a shortage of them forthe people who really need them, but worse sil, some ofthe people who request them often don’t need them at all. ve lost count ofthe number of imes I've pushed someone through the airport, taken them through customs and passport control, and gota porter to pick up theie luggage, and then seen the person jump upin Arrivals and sprit towards thet wating relatives. One fight attendant | know ges so annoyed when this happens that as soon asthe passenger gets out ofthe chair she shouts, ‘Ladies and gentlemen! | give you another mirade, courtesy of the ailine industry! After decades ina chair, he walks againt' The passenger is normally so embarassed that he (and its usually ae) _/~ disappears as quickly ashe can. a ( ‘Birds are one of the major problems for any airport when eT planes are taking of and nding Asan or any large bird / ‘can easily cause an accident. 5 (—] Smaller birds are Jess ofa problem. in some cases they can dosome damage, but more often than not they are just roasted. When this happens, there is often such a strong smell of roast bird that passengers on the plane think that chicken is being cooked, ‘and they're often surprised when they are given a choice of fish or beef at dinner!2 VOCABULARY air travel a Complete the column on the right with a word or phrase (all the words come from the Air Babylon extract). At the airport Most big airports have several different buildings called terminals _ 2. Passengers leave from Departures and arrive at 3. Two general words for bags and suitcases are and. 4 When you arrive at the airport, you go to _to get your boarding pass. 5. Before you get on the plane you have to show identification at and go through security 6 After you have arrived you go to baggage reclaim to your luggage. 7 When you go through, you may be asked, ‘Do you have anything to declare?” 8 A person whose job isto carry your bags for you is called a 9 Ryanair and easyJet were two of the first low-cost Oo On the plane 10. The pilots and other people who work in the plane are the (air) 11 The people who have paid to travel in a plane are 12. The person who looks after you during a flight is the 13, You can usually ask for a window or aisle 14 The noun from the verb flyis 15. When a plane is going up into the sky itis 16 When a plane is coming down from the air itis b Which of the words in a can also be used if you are travelling by bus or train? © Cover the words on the right and read the definitions again. Can you remember all the words and pronounce them correctly? MINI GRAMMAR so/ such...that The passenger is normally 6 @mibartassed that he disappears as quickly as possible ‘When this happens there is often such a strong smell of roast bird that passengers on the plane think that chicken is being cooked. We often use s0/ such... (that) to express a consequence. Use so + adjective / adverb ‘The film was so good (that) we went to see it again, He drives so dangerously (that) nobody wants to go with him. Use 50 much | so many + noun ‘There was so imuch traffic (that) we nearly mised our flight Use such a + adjective + single countable noun Ir was such a good fl (that) we went to see it again. Use such + adjective + uncountable or plural noun They played such avgful music (that) nobody warted to dance. ‘They were such beautiful shoes (that) I bought ther, Ss Complete the sentences with so, such, or such a > 1 The ight was Jong that I got really bored. 2 Thad noisy child sitting beside me that I couldnt sleep at all. 43 There was ___ Tong delay because of fog that we had to slep atthe airport. “4 My suitcase was heavy that Thad to pay excess baggage | 5 slept ‘badly in the plane that it took me two days to recover. ) 6 Wewere served terrible food that I couldn't eat a thing. D7 There were ‘many people at check-in that we had to queue for an hour. 8 Wehad heavy cases that we had to ask for a porter.GRAMMAR narrative tenses, past perfect continuous Read a newspaper story about an incident during a recent flight. What happened? Do you think the flight attendant should lose her job? DR Corer oer tL virgin atlantic Everything was going smoothly on Virgin Alantic ight VSO43 from London Gatwick to Las Vegas. The 451 passengers were relaxing after lunch when the plane ht some turbulence over Greenland, There was no advance warning, o many passengers were out oftheir seats or were not wearing seatbelts when the plane started dropping violently. ‘Suddenly one of the ight attendants screamed , ‘We're going to crash’ Panic immediately broke out n the 30 minutes of chaos, passengers desperately clung to their seats, as drinks ‘and magazines flew aroun the cabin, Amid the terror, the fight atendant creamed every time the plane dropped. Businesswoman Angela Marshall was traveling with her partner. ‘Untl then the fight had been fine,’ she said afterwards. ‘Yd been reading my book and my partner had been having a nap. But when the fight attendant started screaming, | was totally convinced that we were about to die” ‘Another passenger sad, ‘It was unreal, ike something from & film. People started crying and being sick. That woman shouldn't be a flight attendant, After we landed she was joking and laughing as if nothing had happened, but we all staggered off the plane ina stat of shock.” Glossary turbulence sudden and sion hangs ia wind deton break broke, broken) out star suey cling (ung, img) oi on tt th tap short slp cepcily ding the day bbe about to be gong to do somothing vory oon stagger valk of you are about to fll b Copy the highlighted verbs into the chart. past simple regular — past simple irregular past continuous past perfect past perfect continuous — ¢ In pairs, look at the sentences and circle the more logical verb form. Be prepared to say why. When the plane hit turbulence. 1 athe passengers screamed J were screaming. 2 ..ithe passengers relaxed / were relaxing. 3 ..athey finished ! had finished lunch. 4 .uthey had flown { had been flying for two hours. d_ © p.t34 Grammar Bank 2B. Read the rules and do the exercises. € In pairs or groups, try to complete the two sentences in four different ways using the four narrative tenses. 1 The police stopped the driver because he. 2 Leouldn’t sleep last night because. 4 PRONUNCIATION irregular past forms ‘Match the sentences 1-8 with the correct sounds A~H according to the pronunciation of the vowel sound. ai 1 Cl 1thought hed caught that flight. I saw him. checking in. 2 C1 The hotel was built in 1950. The date was written above the door. 3 C1 The company had become successful since it won the prize for Best Airline. 4 C1 I flew to Mexico City. I knew the city very wel. 5 C1 She read for a while before she fell asleep. Then she dreamt about her childhood 6 7] Weld flown from New York that day. We'd chosen a bad day to travel. 7 Cl Iheard that they'd been hurt in the accident, but they weren't 8 Cl She said she'd paid for the train with money she'd taken from my wallet. b 25> Listen and check. Then practise saying the sentences,