windfall 復習
原油価格の下落により、航空会社は利益をあげているようです。
Helped by falling oil prices, airlines are reporting record profits, but for many passengers this sudden bonanza has meant little more than extra bags of free peanuts and pretzels.
The four biggest domestic carriers — American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines — together earned about $22 billion in profits last year, a stunning turnaround after a decade of losses, bankruptcies and cutbacks. A big reason for this is the plunging price of jet fuel, which now costs only a third of what it did just two years ago.
But that windfall is only slowly finding its way down the aisles. Days after reporting record profits, for instance, two of the nation’s biggest airlines brought back free snacks in coach.
"windfall"を取り上げます。『ジーニアス英和辞典』によると「意外な授かりもの, たなぼた」とありました。LDOCEでは"an amount of money that you get unexpectedly"と定義されています。語源を求めてみますと、
mid-15c., from wind (n.1) + fall (n.1). Originally literal, in reference to wood or fruit blown down by the wind, and thus free to all. Figurative sense of "unexpected acquisition" is recorded from 1540s.
とありました（http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=windfall）。
記事の中でsudden bonanzaという類似の表現もあります。これは最近話題になったアメリカの宝くじの当選者が出た際にも使われた表現であったことを思い出しました。(lua)
