Airline Languages

[ooOO00OOoo]

Do all airlines flying to and from a english speaking country have to speak english? Just wondering because in anothe thread people are saying how good Thai and Singapore were. Just want to know if you can understand the flight attendents

[ZK-KAG]

The International language of aviation is English, so regardless of the country the flight crew has to speak English. Although the cabin service will generally be in two languages.

~ZK-KAG~

[Zöltuger]

even Air NZ have cabin crew who speak multiple languages on certain routes.

[kiwiflyboy]

The french speak french in france...... and im sure in the middle of china some guy flying his 152 will probably speak chinese..... but the ICAO rules are english (except for france, and possible french canada)

[nzav8tor]

As far as on board service goes flight attendants should be able to speak english to a reasonable level.

For flight crew and ATC english is required although in alot of european and asian countries local crews and controllers speak in their native tounge.
Which personally I find annoying and dangerous as it is impossible to build a picture of who is where if you can't understand the other guys.
This is a problem particularly in spain, france and italy.

Some out of the way airport controllers have a terrible standard of heavily accented english and it pays to be super careful to check squawk codes and more importantly QNH setting, altitudes/Flight levels and headings when under vectoring.
I have had problems with poor communication and misunderstandings a few times now and it is not fun having to go against what the controller is saying even though you know you are doing the right thing.

The military/corporate airport in Madrid, Torrejon has an interesting approach which commences inbound on ILS approach for the major airport, Barracas. (My spelling is wrong, LETO and LEBA I think) then at a point on the extended centreline of Torrejon you turn to line up for finals.

On one such approach in intermittent IMC at night the controller was saying turn left and continue to Torrejon while the turn was clearly a right turn for us.
We checked twice with the controller saying, please confirm this is a right turn. He replied negative, left turn, which would have taken us toward the wrong direction and cut across other traffic approaching Barracas.

We did turn right and after checking again the controller very apologetically did confirm it was a right turn.
Sheesh. And the flight out was worse but thats another story.

Surprisingly turkey speak english on the radio even to their own which is nice. And Austria and germany are good for this too.
Eastern europe is better than western most of the time by speaking english to everyone.

Seems the spaniards, french and italians are grinding their axe...

[johanfrc]

I have heard the ATC in Denmark talking Danish to a Danish pilot. But it was not important. And had nothing to do with taxiing or atkeoff og landing. So. No problems there.

[Alex]

ICAO languages are English, Spanish, French, Arabic, Russian, and Chinese, so theoretically any of these languages can be used in flight between the aircraft and controllers - however its primarily English.

Alex

[scon]

Arn't you glad you speek english

[deaneb]

Reminds me of a story..........

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German aeroplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."


Deane

[Mattnz]

Reminds me of a story..........

A Pan Am 727 flight waiting for start clearance in Munich overheard the following:

Lufthansa (in German): "Ground, what is our start clearance time?"

Ground (in English): "If you want an answer you must speak in English."

Lufthansa (in English): "I am a German, flying a German aeroplane, in Germany . Why must I speak English?"

Unknown voice from another plane (in a beautiful British accent): "Because you lost the bloody war."


Deane

Classic

[Jimmy]

Was thinking about excatly the same thing Deane


All this would be checked before a crew was assigned a route of course, they can't be so stopid as to send a airline pilot on some flight where he msut speak a certian language or whatever..

Thank goodness I speak english, have enough trouble with it, let alone ever learning anothor language..

James

[ardypilot]

"Because you lost the bloody war."

Thats a good one!