Take Away English-Heathrow Terminal 5 希思罗机场五号航站楼
时间：2019-01-02 作者：英语课 分类：Take Away English
Many people had to wait around in the airport for a long time
London Heathrow is the biggest airport in the UK, and it also handles more international passenger traffic than any other airport in the world. For this reason, expansion was planned and on 27th March a fifth terminal opened to help to cope with the many passengers that pass through the airport.
The new terminal has taken a long time to plan and build. The idea was first proposed back in the 1980s.
The opening of it has been talked about widely in the media in the UK and expectations were high for the £4.3 billion (60.2 billion RMB) project.
However, in spite of long preparations at Terminal 5 ahead of the grand opening, things soon descended 1 into chaos.
There were problems from the outset as staff had difficulties finding car parking spaces and getting through security to get into the building. This consequently caused a delay when passengers started to arrive and adequate numbers of staff were not in place.
Long passenger queues formed and the slow start meant that everyone had to play catch-up from the beginning.
Staff were having problems using the new systems and a baggage handler told the BBC, it was all "a shambles 3 the moment the doors opened".
The terminal has been designed to handle 12,000 bags an hour but due to a reported "lack of training and essential support that was promised", a backlog 4 of luggage soon materialised.
By lunchtime on that first day, 20 flights had been cancelled to try and alleviate 5 the problems. Flights continued to be cancelled in the days following the opening and up to 28,000 bags have now had to be placed in temporary storage.
BA, the only airline operating at Terminal 5 says it is working to clear the backlog, but the negative publicity 6 caused by this fiasco has not helped the airport or the airline's reputation at all.
GLOSSARY 词汇表
handles
处理
expansion
扩建/扩展
proposed
拟议/建议的
billion
（数）十亿
from the outset
伊始
queues formed
出现长队
a baggage handler
行李管理员
lack of
缺少
materialised
形成
temporary storage
临时行李储存处
international passenger traffic
国际航空客运量
to cope
应对
expectations
期待
grand opening
隆重的揭幕仪式
adequate
足够的
to play catch-up
紧紧追赶
a shambles
大混乱
a backlog
积压（行李）
alleviate
减轻/减缓
fiasco
大失败/乱七八糟
- A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
- The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。
- After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
- The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。
- My room is a shambles.我房间里乱七八糟。
- The fighting reduced the city to a shambles.这场战斗使这座城市成了一片废墟。
- It will take a month to clear the backlog of work.要花一个月的时间才能清理完积压的工作。
- Investment is needed to reduce the backlog of repairs.需要投资来減轻积压的维修工作。
- The doctor gave her an injection to alleviate the pain.医生给她注射以减轻疼痛。
- Nothing could alleviate his distress.什么都不能减轻他的痛苦。