Originally Posted by 1353513636

I noticed that many of the FAs on UA's international routes are Americans who speak the language that they wear the flag of as a 2nd language. For example, Japanese speakers who wear the Japanese flag on their uniform but obviously aren't fluent. I sat next to a Japanese couple (the couple was bilingual but obviously preferred to communicate in Japanese) on a recent flight to Japan and every time the couple spoke to the Japanese speaking FA she would look uncomfortable and respond in English. I assume the reason they don't have more fluent FAs is because they can't find them, which begs the question of why they don't hire people from the destination country. Wouldn't they also save money, especially for countries where wages are significantly lower (like China, for example)?