Frankly I am surprised no one picked on another problem here - I don't know where the boundary in Europe lies but in the US you are not allowed to use flight-level terminology if you are below 18000 feet, I think it makes perfect sense to disallow use of flight levels anywhere except the class A airspace. And frankly I am at
2000 feet sounds a lot shorter than I am at
flight level two hundred...
Or perhaps this is a North American pilot used to a Transition Level of FL180.
No, he couldn't have been a North American pilot precisely because of the above. No NA pilot will use flight level for such low altitudes.