Originally Posted by
Mark_mnl
I'm sure that's true but I can't be that sympathetic. Once in Bangkok, I flew China Airlines to Taipei and the same Thai gate agent gave the boarding announcement in Chinese, Thai and (excellent) English. Accents are OK and while I've never experienced a gate agent who could not speak English clearly, yes, that should be a basic job requirement. I realize expecting trilingual gate agents would be a bit much in the U.S. but surely we can settle for clearly spoken English at least, no?
Yes. But good luck putting "must speak English without a thick accent" on a job requirement. The ACLU and Co. would be filing a lawsuit about 3 seconds after the requirement was posted. I don't blame the airlines for this, I blame our insane PC mentality for it. I've been on several flights where I couldn't understand most of what the FA was announcing because his/her accent was so thick. No big deal if the announcement is something about the peanuts about to be served. Big deal if the announcement is we're about to make an emergency landing and here is what you need to do....