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  3. London’s Heathrow Airport is notorious for queues and delays. Why is this happening and what can you do to avoid the frustration

London’s Heathrow Airport is notorious for queues and delays. Why is this happening and what can you do to avoid the frustration

admin2009-06-24  43
问题     London’s Heathrow Airport is notorious for queues and delays. Why is this happening and what can you do to avoid the frustration?
    In the film Catch Me If You Can, Leonardo DiCaprio plays a dashing young con artist who fools an airline into believing he is one of their captains. He strolls through a sleek and futuristic air terminal flanked by a gaggle of stewardesses, his progress serene. The message is clear: Air travel is glamorous, sexy and a total breeze.
    Cut to Heathrow, 2007, and what is still the world’s largest airport (by passenger numbers) is stretched to breaking point, beset by delays and hampered by a creaking infrastructure. Ken Livingstone, London’s garrulous Mayor, says the airport is "shaming London". How did it come to this?
    In a sense, Heathrow’s key role in the development of Britain’s (and the world’s) aviation industry has been its undoing. First opened to commercial flights in 1946, Heathrow has always been there first; consequently, it has inherited a legacy of aging terminal buildings. Then September 11 happened, and security protocols went through the roof. The 2005 London bombings didn’t help matters.
    The queues to clear Heathrow’s security can take hours to clear, especially when not all the x-ray machines are open. At the other end of the process, passengers have faced seemingly never-ending waits for luggage. A recent Association of European Airlines report showed that between April and June this year the luggage system at Heathrow broke down 11 times.
    The British government, spurred on by angry airlines, passenger groups and an increasingly vocal media, has announced an enquiry into how the airport is run. Heathrow, like seven other major airports in the UK, is run by the British Airports Authority (BAA), who has been accused of putting the profits from the vast shopping malls in each terminal before investment in security and staff. Ryanair, British Airways and the head of the International Air Transport Association have all criticized the running of the airport, blaming under-investment.
    A spokesman for Heathrow notes that all may not be lost quite yet. Ninety-seven percent of passengers get through security after less than 10 minutes of queuing. The baggage rules for using UK airports have been the same for a while now, so travelers should be getting used to the plastic bags and one item of hand-luggage rule. And BAA is recommending that people don’t turn up earlier than they should—three hours for long-haul, two for short haul and 90 minutes for domestic should be fine. Heathrow has also employed 500 new security staff and opened nine new security lanes this year.
    And then there’s Terminal Five, the gleaming, light-filled Richard Rodgers creation, complete with a landscaped civic space, due to open in March 2008. It will be British Airways’ new home and should take the pressure off the rest of the airport. Far more suitable for a Leonardo-style sashay.
选项 A、dangerous.
B、enchanting.
C、frustrating.
D、time-consuming.
答案B
解析
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