Real Easy English: Talking about airports

Episode theme and vocabulary

This episode of BBC Learning English's Real Easy English series focuses on the language of airports. Hosts Neil and Becka work through the key vocabulary using their own travel experiences as context, giving listeners a natural setting in which to pick up words and phrases they can use straight away. Free transcripts and worksheets for the episode are available on the BBC Learning English website (bbclearningenglish.com).

Core airport vocabulary

The episode opens with **check-in**. This is the process of formally notifying your airline that you are boarding the flight and dropping off any luggage you want to put in the hold. These days check-in is usually completed online before you reach the airport, though airport check-in desks remain an option.

Once you have checked in, you receive a **boarding pass** — the document you must have to get on the plane. It also shows your seat number.

From there, passengers **go through security**, the inspection area where staff check that you are not carrying anything prohibited in the cabin. Before the flight departs, passengers wait at the **boarding gate**.

The episode rounds off the vocabulary with two essential verb phrases: **catch a flight** (to board successfully) and **miss a flight** (to arrive too late).

Neil and Becka on airports and flying

The two hosts take opposite positions. Neil says he likes flying but dislikes airports — and security in particular. He describes the feeling as: even though he has done nothing wrong, going through security makes him feel guilty. Becka's view is the reverse: she dislikes flying but enjoys airports. Her reasoning is that once she is at the airport, the responsibility of getting herself somewhere transfers to others and she can relax. At the time of recording, Becka was about to travel to Montenegro and admitted, with a rueful laugh, that a flight was unavoidable.

Neil's missed flight in Ireland

Neil has actually missed a flight — during a trip to Ireland. He was staying in Cork but needed to fly home from Dublin. He missed the train from Cork to Dublin and, as a result, did not make it to the airport in time. He looks back on it as a genuinely stressful experience.

Becka's last-passenger boarding story

Becka has never missed a flight, but she came very close. After a long journey back from Vietnam she was exhausted and let herself relax too much at the airport, losing track of the boarding announcements. She only realised the situation just moments before her name was read out over the tannoy, and she had to run to the gate. She made it — as the very last passenger to board — but admitted it was embarrassing to walk onto the plane with everyone already seated and looking at her. Neil sympathised, noting that having your name called over an airport PA system is mortifying because everyone around you immediately thinks, "That person is about to miss their flight."