Originally Posted by
FlyingStone
You quietly forgot to mention that every single British pilot has ICAO Level 6 (which has been required for most UK-based jobs, alongside verbal reasoning tests etc.) and unlike most of their colleagues they've had the pleasure of studying for and taking their ATPL exams in their native language, making it either much easier to achieve the same level - or, with the same amount of effort invested, achieve a much higher level of knowledge.
I didn't quietly forget anything.
I am speaking in generalities...
There are far more EU pilots that speak English to a very high standard, than there are Brit pilots who speak another EU language to a very high standard. The Dutch would probably outnumber us Brits by themselves, let alone including the Scandinavians etc etc
As you rightly point out we already have the luxury of speaking the international language of aviation, where did I claim otherwise?
I might be out of date, but even recent job adverts I had seen advertised only asked for ICAO level 4 for jobs based in the UK.
Obviously some like BA have some very tricky verbal reasoning tests & I take my hat off to anyone who can pass the verbal reasoning tests for BA as a non native speaker, that is a seriously impressive achievement.