Originally Posted by
NYC2SGN
I was on LAX-NRT last Christmas in J.
The FAs were NRT based, but most of them were native Mandarin speakers, which I thought odd (because I don't know what the rules are to be based in NRT as a UA FA; do you have to be a Japanese speaker/citizen?) --though it was much appreciated in our cabin, as there were Mandarin speaking passengers on board.
The service was excellent, and I don't think anyone was treated differently based on their race or language of communication with FAs.
I thought the HKG based UA FAs were from the U.S., though I'm only basing this off of one of the videos UA posted on YouTube. The HKG based FAs on my flight from EWR-HKG spoke Cantonese, Mandarin, and Tagalog.
I believe the stations are based on whether they have legal working rights at the base, and what types of flights they would like to work on. There are FAs commuting from NRT to work out of SFO or EWR (Presumably they are US citizens or permanent residents). The purser on my last EWR-HKG was HKG based, but he was from Taiwan, and currently resides in the UK. Part of the flexibility that comes with the profession.