DL Redcoats in CDG?
Jul 17, 2018, 6:20 am
#16
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Are you kidding? 
If I address AF employees in my three-semesters-in-Phonetique-a-la-Sorbonne+SciencePo French, sure, they'll snap to attention and do somethign if I tell them how. Absolutely. There's a cultural heirachy here, after all, and I might complain to Macron over cocktails at Brasserie Lipp. after all.
If I tend towards a provincial accent much less English? Good luck getting any response at all other than "Delta handles that" or "use the app."
On this one: my position is, Delta needs to step in, demand control, and force the AF socialists to do something.
Weet u niet?
If I address AF employees in my three-semesters-in-Phonetique-a-la-Sorbonne+SciencePo French, sure, they'll snap to attention and do somethign if I tell them how. Absolutely. There's a cultural heirachy here, after all, and I might complain to Macron over cocktails at Brasserie Lipp. after all.
If I tend towards a provincial accent much less English? Good luck getting any response at all other than "Delta handles that" or "use the app."
On this one: my position is, Delta needs to step in, demand control, and force the AF socialists to do something.
Weet u niet?
Jul 17, 2018, 1:58 pm
#17
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Washington, DC, Chapel Hill, NC (RDU)
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I've always thought that there were a few DL employees at AMS -- different uniforms at the gate.
Interesting -- related, not directly. I flew CTU-AMS recently on one of the 4x week KLM flights. Most of the handling for KL at CTU was by a handling agent. But, while waiting for the checkin desk to open a Chinese guy with KL pins came up to me an introduced himself as the station manager (I was in the SP line). We talked a bit about my travels and DL DM status (he saw the brag tag on my carry-on) -- clearly a KL employee. He was at the gate later and wished me a good trip as I was boarding. Probably the only KL employee at CTU?
Interesting -- related, not directly. I flew CTU-AMS recently on one of the 4x week KLM flights. Most of the handling for KL at CTU was by a handling agent. But, while waiting for the checkin desk to open a Chinese guy with KL pins came up to me an introduced himself as the station manager (I was in the SP line). We talked a bit about my travels and DL DM status (he saw the brag tag on my carry-on) -- clearly a KL employee. He was at the gate later and wished me a good trip as I was boarding. Probably the only KL employee at CTU?
Jul 18, 2018, 7:50 pm
#18
Join Date: Jul 2006
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Jul 18, 2018, 10:14 pm
#19
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Something I've learned after being based for almost 7 years at CDG is that while people normally refuse to answer if I speak english in the city, it works better than French at the airport.
Jul 18, 2018, 10:18 pm
#21
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Not a native French speaker but 99.9% fluent, and I can tell you that the results would be worse.
But again, this is my own experience departing CDG a few times per month during the last 7 years and I am sure other FTers have had a different experience.
But again, this is my own experience departing CDG a few times per month during the last 7 years and I am sure other FTers have had a different experience.
Jul 19, 2018, 12:41 am
#22
Join Date: Jul 2006
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How are your enchainements? "Il y a" -- what are the four or five most common ways of articulating that from the pallette, depending on the following word?, (and the forty or fifty categorizations by linguists, of various schools in the traditions of various nations?). (Rattle off the five or six most likely rhythm patterns of "une bombe," and the significances of what their usages and variations meant in the contexts of their use, for those of use who happened to be, for some reasons, on the platform and environs of St. Michel, on the 25th of July 1995).
You appear to be entirely missing, so much subtlely of language and culture, here ... and I'm going to conclude, that you're not at all, an expert or qualified to speak, in matters in which I am deeply and inimately familiar...
You appear to be entirely missing, so much subtlely of language and culture, here ... and I'm going to conclude, that you're not at all, an expert or qualified to speak, in matters in which I am deeply and inimately familiar...
Jul 19, 2018, 9:32 am
#24
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The last time I flew from CDG, the agent asked me whether I wanted to do the check in using English or French. This was in the Terminal 2E SkyPriority area for D1 on a DL ticketed/marketed/operated flight with a USA passport and no French-looking name.
Jul 19, 2018, 10:24 am
#25
Join Date: Sep 2006
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Yes, most of the time they ask me this question. My choice of the language is because I know that Americans have a completely different concept than French about customer service and this is something airport agents know really well.