Listen to the audio recording and write down everything you hear. You can play the audio as many times as you like. When you are finished, check your work against the transcript and the answer key below.
Continue reading Listening: Tail-Skid Contact on Departure from BangkokYou’re going to hear about something that happened to an airliner during a night flight over Indonesia. Listen carefully for what the crew noticed first, what they decided the problem was, and how they dealt with it.
Continue reading Listening: Volcanic Ash Encounter near Bali
Every decision an airline makes has a goal behind it. When we want to explain the reason an action is meant to achieve — not what happened, but what it was for — we use a purpose clause. News reports are full of them: a carrier moves into a busy hub to attract business travellers, or trims its network so that it can keep costs down.
Continue reading Structure: ‘Purpose clauses’
Southwest Airlines has stopped flying from two of America’s busiest airports. From 4 June 2026, the low-cost carrier no longer serves Chicago O’Hare or Washington Dulles, and the final Southwest flights from both airports departed the day before. The move ends a roughly five-year experiment at two major hubs.
Continue reading Southwest Ends All Flights at O’Hare and Dulles
Aircraft: Airbus A321
Callsign: Skyward 451
Route: Madrid (LEMD) to Munich (EDDM)
Current state: Cruising at flight level three six zero over southern France. A passenger has collapsed with severe chest pains, and a doctor travelling on board is attending. Fuel endurance is 1 hour 20 minutes. You are on Marseille Control frequency.
Souls on board: 184
Your role: First Officer working the radio while the Captain coordinates with the cabin crew
When Air India announced that it would cancel 22% of its domestic flights for June and July, the coverage was full of reasons — soaring jet-fuel prices, a conflict near the Strait of Hormuz, and costs the carriers simply could not absorb. In English, the words you choose to introduce a reason depend on what comes next.
Because introduces a full clause (a subject and a verb). Because of and due to introduce a noun phrase, which has no verb of its own. The meaning is the same; the grammar is not.
Continue reading Structure: ‘Due to vs because’