Marc Liljeqvist

This may sound like extreme nitpicking, but it is not really a complaint, but rather a curiosity.
I fly with EK almost every month, mainly on the route CPH-DXB-HND, and I am bit surprised at how different the level of information is depending on what language the announcement is given in. I always thought that the crew had a small paper with a "script" that they needed to read out to the passengers. I once saw this on an AF flight, where the flight attendant had this little pocket book with translations and everything.

When talking about information, shouldn't everyone be given the same?
Here is an example on a recent flight on the route mentioned.

CPH - DXB

English / Arabic announcement: "Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the crew I would like to welcome you onboard this Emirates flight to Dubai International Airport in cooperation with Qantas and Malaysian Airlines. As we approach 20.000 ft. you may use our onboard wifi service. Shortly after our crew will be passing through the cabin with the menu, which consists of enter meal description. If you are interested in earning miles on this flight, you may sign up for our Skywards programme which offers..." and so on.

Danish: "Ladies and gentlemen, weclome onboard this Emirates flight (no mention of Qantas or Malaysian) My name is Caroline and I hope you have a pleasant flight.
On this flight you may buy duty free products, which you can read about in the catalogue in the seat pocket. Thank you"

The english and arabic announcement were very professional and detailed, while the danish sounded like something you would hear on a cheap holiday charter to Spain.

Then on to the HND flight.

English / Arabic announcement: Almost similar to the one on the CPH flight.

Japanese announcement: Same as the english/arabic, but with extra added
"Toilets are located here and here"
"You can recline your seat this way"
"You can call the crew this way"
"When landing in the airport, you exit this way"
"When you are at customs, you need to this"
"When you are at arrivals, you can do this"
etc. etc.

The japanese announcement went on and on and on with a ton of information about the onboard facilities AND a complete guide to get through and out of the airport.

I can understand the Japanese language, but I kept thinking "Wow... All that information about Haneda could actually have been useful to foreign travelers, who unlike the Japanese have no experience with this airport".

I wonder why there is such a big difference.

skywardhunter

I think it's amazing that you understand all 4 of those languages

m3red

The one annoying thing about the Japan flights is the announcements take forever

eternaltransit

There actually is a script - but the script changes with each language.

I also find it a little strange that different languages have different scripts but they do eventually change so perhaps they will get round to standardising it - but perhaps there is also an element of announcement fatigue they want to avoid.

ioto1902

If you understand Japanese, you also know that Japanese people like it when everything is planned from A to Z. Nothing is left to chance.
When something is unclear, they get very worried.
The first thing you notice while in Japan is the noise pollution. There are constant announces in speakers everywhere. Silence is something that get them stressed.
(From personal experience of living 6 years in Japan)

It is simply the proof that the guy who wrote the text is not a simple translator. S/he has well embraced the culture. Good work EK !

Marc Liljeqvist

The beauty of the free danish education system. You can (or rather could) pretty much study for fun. I took both Arabic and Japanese which I am thankful I did. Its quite convinient in terms of business.

Also, yes I am fully aware of the Japanese wanting everything explained. I just thought this form of communication could actually be quite useful to foreign travellers. Though you DO have a point about it getting annoying at some point. I always feel incredibly sorry for the poor devils working at Narita and Haneda, who has to listen to "The end of the walk is ahead. Please watch your step" all day

ioto1902

OMG
Now it's back in my head. My day is ruined.

ukdoctor

And I thought that the 'mind the gap' in the UK was bad enough.

Saltire74

That's one thing that I am not keen on when on EK. The constant multilingual announcements, but they do at least cater for an international crowd

S

ProleOnParole

This mirrors my experience with EK PAs: the English and Arabic ones seem to be standardized, while with those in any other language (Danish in OP's case) it's up to the particular FA what to say, although they broadly follow some template.

The announcement in Japanese seems quite extreme though: if all those people somehow miraculously made it through the airport and onto the plane, one could posit they can also find their way out. However, as ioto1902 said, this is pretty consistent with the cultural expectations of the Japanese (perhaps East Asians in general), and makes them feel well taken care of, so the FA who realizes that is arguably doing her job properly with regard to that group of passengers, even if non-Japanese speakers forced to listen to all of it and having their IFE broadcasts interrupted may beg to disagree.

Even within Europe, there are big differences between countries with regard to the scope of announcements. I recall on German trains only stop names are announced, while in Britain it's a never-ending, nagging torrent of "mind the gap," "don't pick your nose," etc. Not sure where Denmark places between the two extremes but East Asia can definitely take it to the next level: the (automated) announcements on Taipei metro are made in 4 languages and are so long that they frequently don't get to complete and are cut in the middle for the following announcement to start playing: there's hardly a moment of silence without anything talking from the speakers.

Personally, I wish EK cut down on the number and length of announcements. Since they market themselves as a global airline, a good start would be to do away with Arabic for long-haul flights outside the region where Arabic is spoken, as barring the Japanese exception these are the longest announcements. Then the safety video could play only once, with subtitles in both English and Arabic.

I've recently travelled on CA and really enjoyed the relative lack of announcements, in particular hearing "if you would like to make duty-free purchases, please tell our staff now" followed by nothing else instead of some tedious duty-free pitch so typical for most airlines nowadays that, from my observations, doesn't really entice people to buy anything anyway. DXB airport advertises itself as avoiding gate announcements to reduce noise pollution, and it would be great for EK to follow suit in a similar manner. I agree that as of now EK announcements are too long and numerous.

chris19992

I'd like a system where you can select the annoucement language on your IFE, the FA presses a button for a language before speaking and only people who have selected that language on their IFE hear it through their headset.
The cost and reliability of such a system though would probably be prohibative, at least for now.

m0hamed

What airline would remove the language of its home? What a ridiculous suggestion.

skywardhunter

Yes, this would be a great idea, but unfortunately not plausible, also many pax don't have on headphones when security info is read out so it goes via the general PA

I agree, that won't happen and I wouldn't expect it to.

ProleOnParole

One that targets its services to an audience wider than their home market.

Does Wizzair have announcements in Hungarian?

Why?

m0hamed