Originally Posted by
orbitmic
+1. You can question accent, willingness or whatever but 100% of AF crew speak English. That is a crucial part of their hiring tests and effectively they cannot be hired without passing them as is the case with any other reputable international airline.
conversely all onboard announcements on AF are made at least in French and English (in that order) be it on a flight to London Shanghai or a domestic hop to Clermont Ferrand. On selected routes or depending on crew skills announcements are also made in a third language (e.g. Spanish to Mexico, Japanese to Tokyo, etc)
I fully agree with you except that your post should state " but 100% of AF crew speak
some English". The requirement for hiring is not fluency. And a third language is also valued.
On flight to China, there is always a mandarin-speaking staff. The issue is a bit more complicated for Hong Kong as there are both cantonese and mandarin speaking pax.