Originally Posted by
deltahotel
Eutychus. I think all the aviators on here see where you’re coming from. However….. consider my own airline which is by no means unique. Until recently with 20 odd nationalities on the flight deck operating in pretty much every country in Europe plus a few others every day. Much as I’d love to have level 4 or better in multiple languages, it’s not going to happen. Picture our Italian/Spanish flight deck into Cdg speaking French, or (just as bad) Scandi/German going to Spanish speaking Madrid or indeed any European flight deck going to native speaking China.
I guess in specific cases (probably regional airports) operating national airline only, native language could work but otherwise I can’t see how anything other than a common language could be safe. Fortunately for linguistically lazy Brits that language happens to be English.
Thanks for your response. I think you slightly misunderstand where I'm coming from.
I have absolutely no problem with there being a standard aviation language and there are plenty of arguments in favour of it being English.
I would also expect ATC at any international airport (as well as pilots!) to have a sufficient command of it.
The point I'm trying to make is that no matter how good the respective parties' English may be,
it's never going to be as fluid as them using a shared native language if they do share one.
And it's with that in mind that I'm disputing the notion that making CDG English-speaking
only would make it a safer airport considering the number of parties talking to each other whose mutually shared native language is French.
Anecdote: Calling my internet provider helpline, I once happened on a tech support guy here in France whose native language was audibly English. Both their French and mine were excellent (my basis for this claim on my part is that I make a living out of being fluent in both), but I can't tell you how frustrating it was trying to troubleshoot the problem in what was not our non-native language because his company policy required it.