Believe it or not, airlines really are trying to do better. They promised to improve custo

mer service last year 【21】______ pressure from a Congress which was 【22】______ stories of nightmare flights.

So why is it that flying is getting 【23】______ for so many passengers, 【24】______ airlines are spending billions of dollars to improve service, 【25】______ in new equipment such as mobile check-in stations and portable phone banks so travelers can quickly 【26】______ a flight when it is delayed or canceled？ The fact is that air travel has 【27】______ been such an annoyance, and customer complaints to the Transportation Department doubled in 1999 【28】______ 1998.

It seems Mother Nature would 【29】______ people by bus this year. An unusual run of bad weather, 【30】______ long walls of thunderstorms, has crippled airports lately and led to widespread delays and cancellations. After similar problems last summer, the FAA promised to work more closely with airlines 【31】______ weather slowdowns--for example, FAA and airline representatives now gather at a single location in Herndon, Va. , to 【32】______ the best way to allocate the available airspace. But even the FAA 【33】______ the new initiative has fallen 【34】______ of expectations, and many passengers complain that the delays seem 【35】______ .

Part of the problem is overcrowded planes. 【36】______ the strong economy, U.S. airlines are expected to carry a record 665 million passengers this year, up 5 percent from last year. On 【37】______ , planes are about 76 percent full these days, also a 【38】______ . That's good news for the Transport Department, which are profitably loading more passengers 【39】______ each flight, and bad news for passengers, 【40】______ irritations build rapidly in fight quarters.

【21】

A．under

B．below

C．beneath

D．beyond