Reading Exercices Examen First Certificate

You are going to read a newspaper article about air travel. Choose the most suitable summary sentence from the list A-l for each part (1-7) of the article. There is one extra summary sentence which you do not need to use. There is an example at the beginning (0).

A It is important to report missing luggage.
B Airlines make special efforts to avoid errors.
C Airlines sometimes blame travellers for lost luggage.
D No airline is free from mistakes.
E Plan ahead when travelling.
F Unexpected events can result in luggage going missing,
G No airport can guarantee the safe handling of luggage.
H Busy airports are likely to have more problems.
I Losing your luggage can be very inconvenient.

Flying has its disadvantages
When was the last time an airline lost your bag?

0 There is nothing more disappointing than arriving at an airport overseas to discover that your baggage has been left behind. At best you will have to put up with wearing the clothes you stand up in for hours or days, until the airline reunites you with your luggage. At worst, you may be in a different climate zone, thousands of miles from home and forced to wear wholly unsuitable clothes.		4 These problems can become severe at large transfer airports, known as 'hubs', because of the large number of bags that are processed. Last year, for example, London's Heathrow airport handled more than 41 million passengers, of whom nine million were changing planes. British Airways alone handled two million transfer passengers at Heathrow, with most making the one-mile transfer between Terminal 1 (for Domestic and European flights] and Terminal 4 (for long-distance flights).
1 Although airlines rarely reveal how many cases they lose, it is a fact of life that sooner or later regular travellers will be parted from their luggage. Even the best airlines slip up from time to time, and it is impossible for any carrier to guarantee that a passenger's checked luggage will go on the same flight, particularly when a journey calls for one or more changes of aircraft.		5 Even efficient transfer airports, such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Singapore and Zurich have their bad days. The risk of baggage being lost when changing planes is higher than average at certain airports. Even the United States has problems - Miami airport is well known for luggage going missing when transatlantic passengers make immediate connections for destinations in Latin America.
2 The system works like this. Airlines insist on exaggerated check-in times (which require passengers to report to the airport at a given time before departure) designed to allow sufficient time for baggage to pass through the airport and be loaded on to the plane. Minimum connecting times (MCTs) are the shortest time it takes to transfer between two flights. These, too, are exaggerated to allow for baggage transfers.		6 You should choose direct flights whenever possible and check in well before the official time. If a change of plane is unavoidable, or makes your flight less expensive, then try to fly the same airline throughout. Try to allow more connecting time by taking an earlier flight to the transfer airport, and make sure you label your luggage inside and out with your home and holiday addresses. Don't forget to include the flight numbers.
3 In normal circumstances the system works well. But extra security checks at airports and problems with air traffic combine to cause delayed flights. All this can cause the baggage system to fail. Then there is the possibility of human error, or an accident in which the destination label is torn off.		7 If, after all this, your luggage still goes missing, you must contact the appropriate airline official in the baggage hall and complete a property irregularity report (PIR). This must be done before leaving the airport.

Remember to add new words to your vocabulary lists!

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