Someone mentioned PANAM earlier. I remember when Japan became an important destination again, we started a program hiring "Nisei" stewardesses ( that's
what they were called at the time ) for their Japanese language skills. Of course we already had German speakers and other languages. Northwest Orient
followed and since then there was always Japanese speaking in-flight crew on board. Don't know about today's UA situation but I would venture to say that
the Unions pretty much killed the program and that's why you see mostly U.S. Citizens as foreign language speakers which might lead to some misunderstandings,
to put it lightly.