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-   -   Languages spoken by AF crews (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/air-france-frequence-plus/1872426-languages-spoken-af-crews.html)

RMO Oct 17, 2017 2:39 am

Languages spoken by AF crews
 
What languages are most commonly spoken by Air France crews on the Paris - Los Angeles route (out of curiosity as I will fly that route)? Besides English and French, I'm guessing Spanish?

Klems Oct 17, 2017 8:49 am

Frenglish is fairly common with AF crews :D ...

carnarvon Oct 17, 2017 9:28 am

Spanish of course but also German, Italian, Portuguese...

However, crews not being assigned to a specific route, you will find the same mix of spoken languages almost wherever you fly to.

brunos Oct 17, 2017 9:41 am

French FAs speak French. They all have some English skills, some good, some just basic.
If they learned another language in high school, or have some non-French family origins, they might speak other languages.

On longhaul, AF tries to make sure that there is at least one FA fluent in the destination language (i.e. Japanese for Japan, Mandarin for China or Mandarin+Cantonese for Hong Kong, ...). On LAX-CDG you will be sure to have at least one FA fluent in English, and all with reasonable to basic skills.
Don't be fooled by their good ability to address you with good English in the several sentences basic to their service. Asking fast and complicated English questions might not be fully understood by some/many of them.

Zarmakuizz Oct 17, 2017 9:53 am

On multiple AF long-haul flights, I heard around 4-5 supported languages at the cabin crew anouncements. My last CDG->ATL flight, supported languages were: French, English, Italian, Spanish, and another one that I don't recall.

orbitmic Oct 22, 2017 3:35 am


Originally Posted by Zarmakuizz (Post 28942941)
On multiple AF long-haul flights, I heard around 4-5 supported languages at the cabin crew anouncements. My last CDG->ATL flight, supported languages were: French, English, Italian, Spanish, and another one that I don't recall.

That is indeed frequent and one of the elements taken into account for rosters. Like all European airlines, AF relies a lot on long haul connecting traffic, and it is very unusual for any route to not have at least one German-speaking, one Spanish-speaking and one Italian-speaking crew members in addition to English and French which they all speak. Other languages like Russian and Arabic are also frequent.

Additionally, as brunos mentioned, there are destination language specific crew rostered on trips to a number of Asian and Latin American routes (Chinese world, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Latin America off the top of my mind). Those are crew members from those countries who are native in the language and there will often be at least 2-3 of them in the plane (at least one in Y and one in J).

HalconBCN Oct 24, 2017 3:03 pm


Originally Posted by RMO (Post 28941721)
What languages are most commonly spoken by Air France crews on the Paris - Los Angeles route (out of curiosity as I will fly that route)? Besides English and French, I'm guessing Spanish?

Just flew this route today and the crew spoke (or claimed to speak) French, English some Spanish and German. Obviously the mix will change each day...

ACYYZ/SD Oct 24, 2017 4:19 pm

French/English and whatever Mother tongue or route-language capability those assigned to that flight are qualified in. As such, there are probably no special language requirements for a flight to the US/Canada other than FR/EN.


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