新视野大学英语视听说教程第三册 Unit 8 Task1:An Overview of Airlines
An airline is an organization which provides aviation services for passengers and cargo. It owns or leases airliners to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for reasons of mutual benefits.
The scale and scope of airline companies range from those with a single airplane carrying mail or cargo, to full-service international airlines operating many hundreds of airplanes of various types. Airline services can be categorized as intercontinental, intra-continental, regional or domestic and may be operated as scheduled services or charters. These variations in the types of airline companies, their operating scope, and the routes they serve, make analysis of the airline industry complex. But one thing is certain: The industry is heavily influenced by the market now. In the past 50 years or so, the general trend of ownership has gone from government-owned or government-supported to independent, for-profit companies. This is a result of the government permit greater freedom. This trend is not yet consistent across all airlines in all regions. The demand for air travel services depends on other things: needs for cargo transportation, business passenger demand, leisure passenger demand, which are all influenced by macroeconomic activity in the market. These trends are highly seasonal, and often depend on day-of-week, or time-of-day. The industry is cyclical. Four or five years of poor performance are followed by five or six years of gradual improvement in performance.
1.D 2 C 3.D 4.A 5.B
