ffay005

Probably in the same way as me when I'm in China (speaking Finnish, waving frantically with my hands, smiling). So far, I haven't starved to death.

Steve_Hun

Part of the inconsistency is because you get 3 checked bags (+1 for status) in J for Asian destinations, but only 2 (+1) for any other destination...

Im a new user

Many airlines already have an "unaccompanied minor" service. Simply expand this business by also offering an "unaccompanied monolingual Chinese" service.

miamiflyer8

LH already runs a similar service.

31570324

Why there would be a "inordinate amount" necessary to serve their needs? Just employ one mandarin speaker at the transfer counter and one at the check in in every shift. They will do the same work than a non mandarin speaker, but if chinese travelers needs assistant in their language because of any irrop, they would be available. I can't see any additional costs for AY. When I stayed overnight at Helsinki two years ago there was a mandarin speaking person available in our hotel, I guess it was the Holiday Inn. Why shouldn't the airport be able to employ someone too or make a contract with the Helsinki Airport chinese speaking Duty Free Service, that they will send someone in case of irrops to translate? We are talking about their Hub.

WilcoRoger

They could also employ a Cantonese speaker, a Japanese speaker, a German speaker, a Russian speaker... where do you draw the line?

intuition

They sort of do. It is just that no one turns up to deliver that service, per my experience earlier in the thread.

juhanh

This is not a language issue I'd say - this is more of an age-related issue: younger people, even if they don't speak the language, have a better understanding of how things like airports work.
Anecdotal evidence would be those older and usually non western travellers I see during most of my LH flights, who don't know how to understand if a lavatory is occupied or not, how to open the lav door (if it has the centre hinge) and how to lock the door from inside. I end up showing how to push the door open and then guarding the "free" lav on almost every LH segment.
So a more special special assistance is really needed. Could be ancilliary revenue that you could book for your elders.

31570324

How many of the Germans, who will use HEL as a Connection Point, doesn't speak any english or can at least read the signs? And how many of the Chinese? Now you know where to draw the line. At least for the case of irrops they should have someone who can assist.

​​​​​​

I wouldn't sign that. I saw many young chinese which never saw a airport from inside, before they fly abroad, including my wife when she came to Germany 6 years ago. It's often just not necessary to use a plane within china. But my parents in law saw many chinese airports before, but that didn't helped them in HEL.

​​​​​​

I saw the same with western travelers on many flights Young and old. But the time on board isn't a problem, as there are always chinese speaking flight attendants available on chinese bound flights.

WilcoRoger

I don't know. But leaving aside German, the do you still agree that they'd need Japanese and Russian (and Thai) speakers next to the Mandarin and Cantonese speakers?

Or should we just face the facts, that it's often a challenge to travel abroad if you speak only your mother tongue?

intuition

I'd say draw the line at the nation you've build your entire growth strategy around and probably bet your entire company future on.

Superrman

Mandarin and Japanese in my opinion. China being the most relevant country for any future growth for AY, and Japanese since AY already has strong Japan network and Japanese are notoriously bad at English and expect/pay for an experience with "everything" included. Korea has marginally better English than China or Japan, but is also a much smaller market for AY than China or Japan.

Mentioning German and Russian is cheap rhetorical point here imo.

FFlash

Yesterday the captain spoke Savo-language, but luckily he also announced his things in english too

Courmisch

The problem with irrops is that they tend to mess the schedule. And it does not make sense to have a Mandarin speaker at the airport at every hours of every days just in case of one irrop on a flight with a group of passengers only speaking Mandarin.

IMO, it makes far more sense to have Chinese (and Japanese, and Russian) leaf-lets ready to guide those occassional unfortunate passengers.

ffay005

This.

In general, I'm with Wilco in this matter – one cannot possibly expect the whole world to speak one's language etc. But in this particular case, when AY's business idea is to make money flying Chinese people around the world, it does make sense to provide them with the assistance they need, at least at AY's home base.