Plane travel

This is a room for the discussion of travel plans or experiences and the culture of places you have visited or plan to visit.
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Serpent
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Plane travel

Postby Serpent » Sun Sep 03, 2017 9:13 am

In-flight announcements :D (many are fun for language-related reasons)

Let's also make this the thread for discussing air travel (unless you have specific questions that require a separate thread).
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Re: Plane travel

Postby Radioclare » Sun Sep 03, 2017 1:35 pm

Some of those are really funny :-)

I'm flying from Lisbon to Madrid in a couple of weeks, which I think will be the first time I fly between two different countries neither of whose languages I speak. I'm hoping if the plane is going to crash, they'll announce it in English :lol:
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Re: Plane travel

Postby Bluepaint » Sun Sep 03, 2017 2:11 pm

Radioclare wrote:Some of those are really funny :-)

I'm flying from Lisbon to Madrid in a couple of weeks, which I think will be the first time I fly between two different countries neither of whose languages I speak. I'm hoping if the plane is going to crash, they'll announce it in English :lol:


But ignorance is bliss, no? :lol: I suppose other passengers might give it away though ;)
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Re: Plane travel

Postby Serpent » Sun Sep 03, 2017 2:32 pm

I think most crews use their country's language and English. This even happens on flights between Russia and Belarus, though if there are no foreigners onboard, using English is just a formality and they speak so fast that I can barely understand them. :lol:

I don't know what the regulations are, especially for lowcost airlines' flights that don't involve the country where they are registered. I flew Ryanair from Gdańsk to Warsaw and the crew appeared to be Polish natives.

I'm following a Russian pilot's blog btw. He said they sometimes use(d) English in the cabin just to practice :) Nowadays he works for Oman Air and he only uses English. There's no requirement for announcements in Arabic.
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Re: Plane travel

Postby Josquin » Sun Sep 03, 2017 4:23 pm

I love the Irish airline Aer Lingus. They have announcements in Irish and English, which is super interesting given that Irish is only a minority language. Sure, this has to do with the official status of Irish as the national language of Ireland, but I always wonder how many people actually understand what the crew is saying to them. :lol: On the other hand, Irish busses, trams, and trains also have bilingual announcements, so it seems only consequent.
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Re: Plane travel

Postby stelingo » Sun Sep 03, 2017 5:35 pm

Radioclare wrote:Some of those are really funny :-)

I'm flying from Lisbon to Madrid in a couple of weeks, which I think will be the first time I fly between two different countries neither of whose languages I speak. I'm hoping if the plane is going to crash, they'll announce it in English :lol:


I made this exact same flight 5 weeks ago with TAP. Announcements were in Portuguese and English. (Maybe Spanish too, I don't remember). And we didn't crash. :)

Also was on a flight from Seville to Barcelona with Vueling. Announcements were in Spanish and English throughout the flight, until we landed, when they also added Catalan when making the welcome announcement.
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Re: Plane travel

Postby Serpent » Sun Sep 03, 2017 5:42 pm

I've taken this flight too (with TAP Express/Portugalia) :D
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Re: Plane travel

Postby Radioclare » Sun Sep 03, 2017 5:58 pm

stelingo wrote:I made this exact same flight 5 weeks ago with TAP. Announcements were in Portuguese and English. (Maybe Spanish too, I don't remember). And we didn't crash. :)


Seems like this is a popular flight :) It's good to know that there are announcements in English. And that it didn't crash :lol:
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Re: Plane travel

Postby jaeger » Sat Mar 17, 2018 5:31 pm

I've flown to Australia via Doha or Dubai a few times, and I quite enjoy the Arabic announcements as a non-speaker. It sounds cool, but I don't know if I'll ever get around to learning it.

The first ~20 hour journey was pretty long, but now that I've done it a few times, it's pretty easy and all other travel pales in comparison :D It would probably be horrendous on a budget airline, though. Qatar Airways and Emirates are really nice.
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Re: Plane travel

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:50 am

English is mandated for flight crew involved in international flights:

http://www.aviation-esl.com/ICAO_English.htm

http://mentalfloss.com/article/55677/what-universal-language-skies

And expected in air traffic control too (see Language section of this Wikipedia article):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_traffic_control
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