Today we are going to talk about American Airlines.
Big companies can make mistakes too.
KFC, for example, mistranslated their slogan when first coming to China.
American Airlines, however, made a much bigger mistake.
In the 1980s, American Airlines needed money.
So, they sold a special ticket for $250,000.
This ticket would allow you to fly anywhere in the world in first-class as many times as you wanted.
There was a second ticket that was offered for $150,000, which allowed you to bring a friend.
That means the total was $400,000 which is about $1.2 million today.
The problem is that was actually too good of a deal.
Steve Rothstein is an investment banker. In 25 years, he flew more than 10,000 times using his special ticket.
He would often fly more than once per day.
The cost of flying when he bought his ticket was much higher as well.
The cost of flying is more than 50% less today compared to 1980.
By 2008 Rothstein had travelled 16 million kilometers.
That is enough to go to the moon and back 20 times.
★重点单词：Key words
Mistakes: 错误
Deal: 很好的协议
Mistranslate: 翻译错
Investment Banker: 投资银行家
Slogan: 口号
Cancel: 取消
Special: 特别
Book: 预定
Special: 特别
Fake: 假的
Ticket: 票
Random: 随机
First-class: 头等舱
Agreement: 协议
★小测试：Questions
1. Why did American Airlines make the special tickets?
2. How much would the ticket cost for one person in 1980?
3. What does Steve Rothstein do?
4. In 2008, how far had Steve Rothstein travelled?
★上期答案：Answers to "Highway with No Cars"
1. M-185
2. Cars
3. crash or accident
4. Emergency vehicles
5. fire truck; ambulance
集团总部总裁办 Ian Antrim