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Old 30th Dec 2011, 17:03
  #29 (permalink)  
Capetonian
 
Join Date: Feb 2001
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Quote:
Maybe they could take a day course in the use of the English language in the air whilst they are away from work ?

A crass and worthless comment that this tread didn't need. What has English proficiency to do with the reasons behind this strike? When was the last time pilots tried to stand up to bullish management and arm-twisting operators in this country?
I don't think it's a crass and worthless comment at all. English proficiency may have nothing to do with the strike, but lack of it explains why Iberia is in the dark ages in terms of customer service.

Whilst I admit that my exposure to Iberia pilots has been listening to the usually unintelligible mumblings from the cockpit, I can comment about the abysmal lack of language proficiency of the employees with whom I have been unfortunate enough to have dealings, that being ground, administrative, and cabin personnel. Not only are they usually sullen and disinterested at best, unlike most Spanish people, but for an international airlines, their language skills are a disgrace.

Fortunately I speak Spanish, otherwise I would have found it totally impossible to deal or work with these people, mostly monoglot. I remember one occasion when waiting for a severely delayed flight at Chaos Central (Barajas) to Johannesburg, the announcements were only being made in Spanish. The English speakers wanted to know what was going on and I got fed up with translating and I asked the ground hostess (before anyone says it, AENA, but Iberia's attitude is the same) to make the announcements in English, to which she asked why .... I explained that most of the passengers were in transit between English speaking countries and didn't understand Spanish, to which she replied : "Entonces estan unos tontos", roughly, "then they must be a bunch of idiots."

This was not an isolated incident, I lived in Spain for a couple of years and had to use their appalling airline frequently.
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