GBobon

hi everyone,

two weeks ago a flew AF1119 from FRA to CDG and during the flight i saw something that I never seen before.

Cabin crew didnt speak english, at all, and before take off she didnt care about the regulations at all. a passenger in front of me watched movies on his laptop during take off (he did it even while the cabin crew checked the seat belts) until we landed and also the cabin lights were on all the time, during take off and landing.

where can I report such a inadequate experience?

I am not looking for a compensation because I think there is no comp for such things, or is it?, but maybe they will follow the regulations in the future?!

ranskis

Have you tried to address the crew in english and they replied in French? When was your last flight before this one? It has been a while AF and most airlines allow for use of electronic devices during take off and landing as long as they are in flight mode.
Was your flight happening at night? the rule (or perhaps there is no rule and it is a common practice on most airlines) is to dim the cabin lights (not necessarily switch off) when take off or landing happen at night. During the day it does not matter.

GBobon

same day i had OTP-MAD-FRA, i didnt fly first time.

AF1119 is leaving FRA at 1950LT and as far as I know, is a requirement to dim the cabin lights (i googled before posting here) during take offs and landings.
a laptop is a quite big device, and as far as i know, it must be stored in a safe place, EU regulations...

irishguy28

"complain" is a verb only; what you mean is a noun - "complaint".

It is an incredibly common error here on FT for some reason....

All large electronic devices must be stowed during taxi, take-off and landing. This is entirely unrelated to the use of personal electronic devices during flight. Large unsecured items can become missiles in the case of an emergency (which is why everyone is also required to wear a seat belt) and must be stowed during the critical phases of the flight.

AlicorporateUK

That, the French slash continental no? at the end of a sentence (how blooming annoying is that, innit?! ) and definitely spelt as defiantly also by native English speakers

G

HalconBCN

Fiends, let's not get hung up on bad spelling 😎

Often1

If CC do not speak English and you do not speak any language they speak, I can appreciate that you could not raise, on the spot, the safety issues which concern you. Thus, best to have raised them immediately upon arrival, either with the Captain or staff at the gate. As this is a safety not a customer service matter, time was either of the essence or the issue is trivial.

At this point I would drop it.

irishguy28

How ironic....though perhaps that wasn't bad spelling but intentional.

Proudelitist

Why should they speak english? It's Germany to France.

As to the laptop, are you sure regulations in France are not different? Do you actually know what the regulations are?

ijgordon

Are you serious?

ok986

While not at all common, I've had flights where the AF crew responded in French to passengers who spoke English to them (eg Ms ok986) - mainly intra-EU flights, incl in J. While eye-brow-raise-worthy, I always presumed that if the push came to the shove, they'd be able to communicate with pax in English.

Re: electronics - perhaps the crews became more lax about this - I've seen people not stowing their electronics on almost every single flight in the past year. I once made a KL cabin attendant aware of this, to which he responded "nothing's gonna happen anyway".

Ber2dca

The English skills of AF cabin crew cannot be taken for granted. Even on flights to English-speaking countries. On those they'll certainly try but don't expect fluency.

If you put Germans, Swedes, Italians, Dutch, Polish, Greeks, Serbs, Chinese and Japanese in a room, they'll typically quite happily accept English as the language to use. This cannot be assumed with the French. Institutionally and culturally, the French never bought into the general premise of English as the current era's lingua franca. I think this is especially obvious when you interact with institutions that bear the hallmarks of French officialdom (one of which is Air France). They would probably be more concerned if their cabin crew were too eager to speak English (an affront to French national prestige).

Goldorak

I certainly don't want to look rude, but you should realize you have 0 credibility for that statement, especially for the 1st part.

Often1

The language issue is irrelevant except that it apparently created a barrier. Had it not created a barrier, as it was a safety matter, OP ought to have raised it immediately to cabin crew or not at all.

OP's poor selection of punctuation and resultant run on sentence can be chalked up to poor language command. I did not take it as a suggestion that non-English speakers don't care about the rules.

BrianWBrazil

I think some of the discussion here lies in the expectation of English being readily spoken or understood while on board a carrier that is not from an English-speaking country and that is flying to an none English-speaking country. France to Germany, as I understand. How can that be something to complain about? When I go from GIG(Rio) to EZE(Buenos Aires) I do not expect or demand to hear any English spoken, not to be understood if I use that language; that would be incredibly arrogant on my part!