Thai Airways Royal Orchid Plus - Non English Speaking FA

Here's a new one for me. I was flying TG internationally the other day, and there were two older male FA's onboard. One of them apparently either didn't speak a word of English, or for some reason was refusing to. During the meal service, he was speaking to everyone in Thai, even those who were very obviously not Thai (caucasian passengers). I've always had TG FA's use English unless they believe the passenger is Thai. Given that I've never encountered a TG FA who couldn't speak English, and even moreso given his age, perhaps his actions were some sort of a protest again TG or against the English language. All the other FA's onboard that I interacted with spoke English. When it was time for landing, the normal annoucement for "Flight attendants, prepare for landing" was given by the same FA I believe, and was announced in Thai, even though there was at least one non-Thai FA aboard who likely would not understand what was being said. So in other words a possible security risk.

Anyways, I don't really know what to make of this, and it's probably not of much significance. It was just so bizarre though for me to encounter this, that I thought I'd pass along my experience.

I've seen some very obviously cacausion people speak and understand a variety of different languages including Thai.
Seems like a non issue to me.

A-Lee ,

I wish to follow this up in depth due to serious safety issues involved . would you please be so kind to release date and flight number please .

Thank you for your cooperation

Airlines always make announcements in the home language, and, most in Asia have a second or third announcement, one of which is English, but in all cases I never have any understanding of which language it could be. I will hear words like death penalty and 500ml, but the one instruction I understand is cross check the doors, I always feel happier that at least two people have checked that the cat is out and the doors are locked.

Mr A_Lee without any doubt will let us know shortly which flight he was on when all this happened .

I've seen some very obviously cacausion people speak and understand a variety of different languages including Thai.
Seems like a non issue to me.

The fact that some non-Thais can speak Thai was irrelevant in this case. The FA continued speaking Thai even when he got bewildered looks and/or no response, indicating that the people couldn't speak or understand Thai. I saw two Koreans, reading Korean newspapers, clearly visible to the FA being they were seated in the emergency exit row, with no seats in front of them. Yet he spoke to them in Thai. When he came back later, he spoke once again in Thai to them. All the time they couldn't understand him. Of course if an FA speaks English to someone and they respond in Thai the FA should feel free to switch to Thai. But English should be the first attempted language towards anyone who is suspected of not being Thai (or of course some other non-English language if that is what the passenger is suspected of knowing).

For Somkiat, the flight was TG657 on April 27. I slept for most of the flight and don't know about the particular FA's interaction with people when I wasn't awake or with people outside my general vicinity. All I know is that I didn't hear him conversing in English with me nor anyone near by me, of which there was only one Thai person I believe, and the rest were Koreans or Westerners.

As for the PA announcements intended for the passengers, all were made in Thai, English, and Korean, in that order, as they always are on such flights. I only noticed the "Flight attendants, prepare for landing" announcement being made in Thai only. I don't think I've ever been on any TG flight before where announcements directed at all FA's have been made in Thai. They are always made in English only, and rightfully so, being FA's are required to know English, and for the case where there is non-Thai speaking cabin crew, it is a must that there be one language used when communicating to all of them. Of course individual FA's use Thai when speaking face-to-face to each other and both / all of the group are Thai. It's only the PA announcements to all FA's that are strictly English-only, except in this case. I should mention that I cannot be 100% certain it was Thai he was speaking for that announcement, but it certainly wasn't English. It was an extremely short message in a language I didn't understand.