The aviation industry is a natural fit for people curious about different countries, cultures and languages. International pilots and flight attendants, for example, might be flying across Europe one week, to North or South America the next, followed by Africa, Asia or Australia.
We speak to a pilot/journalist about his training and about how pilots typically communicate. We also ask a Lufthansa flight attendant about her intercultural training and how she prepares for international flights.
With a father and grandfather in the Italian air force, it’s no surprise that Eugenio Facci grew up fascinated by aviation. In 2000, he got his pilot’s licence while studying in the US. Back in Italy, he worked as a university researcher on aircraft accidents and later trained as a commercial airline pilot. Now 44 and based in the UK and Italy, his interest in aviation has led him to journalism, as the assistant editor of Pilot magazine.
Is there something about pilots’ personalities that attracts them to the job?
Pilots tend to be straightforward people. They say what they mean and they mean what they say. Most aviation standards and rules come from Britain and the United States, and those have been adopted around the world. There are very few differences, for instance, in the way you learn to fly, the rules you need to apply, the rules about how much fuel you need... It’s a very standardized environment and that inevitably affects the way people are. Pilots belong to the nation of flying.
Did you require excellent English for your training?
Back then, you didn’t. I guess my English was, I would say, like now. I didn’t have any problems. When I was 13, I spent two years in Luxembourg because my dad was living there, and I went to school there and it was in English. That’s initially how I learned English.
Do pilots need to be able to communicate clearly?
Absolutely. In fact, pilots are forced, even by law, to be clear. For example, when you speak on the radio, there’s an aviation language. You don’t speak “normal English”. You need to speak in a very specific way. For instance, a pilot doesn’t say “nine” for the number nine. A pilot says “niner”. That was introduced to avoid confusion with the German nein. And a pilot doesn’t say “yes” or “no”, a pilot says “affirmative” or “negative”.
Tell us about your experience of flying in New Zealand.
I think it is the prettiest place I have ever flown. It was interesting to see that, whereas aviation in my Italian, British and American experience tended to be male-dominated, in New Zealand, I would say around 30 per cent of the instructors were women. And that’s much higher than in the UK, US and Italy. And quite a lot of instructors were gay, openly gay, which is something I’d never seen in America, the UK or Italy.
What about flying in America?
When we think about America as the land of freedom, I really did feel that there was actual meaning in this phrase. They do what they call LAHSO (land and hold short operations) at airports with intersecting runways. They would clear you to land on a runway while maybe a big aircraft, a 747, was operating on the other runway, with the expectation that you would land and stop before [reaching the intersection]. That was the prime example for me of a great deal of trust placed in student pilots, which I hadn’t seen in Italy.
What have you learned from being a pilot?
I think passion for aviation is a very deep thing for many people. It’s very easy for a pilot to meet other people, even from very distant countries, who are interested in aviation. It’s perhaps similar to people making a connection with someone who likes one particular band. And it doesn’t matter if one person is from Indonesia and the other is from Chile, they instantly have a connection. That comes from sharing the passion for flying.
Another thing, as we’re talking about cross-cultural differences, you don’t see them from the sky. You don’t see borders from the sky. That is something quite striking. You land at an airport in America and before you get through customs and immigration, you have limited liberty and you’re very constrained. It’s the same in Europe. That is something that’s been invented by people on the ground. When you are in the sky, you don’t see that. I think there is a passion for freedom or attachment to freedom, the lure of freedom, that all pilots have and that’s international. It’s very cross-cultural. And I like it.
Born in Munich, 44-year-old Verena Breinig fell in love with languages after a holiday in the US. At 19, she moved there for three years to study graphic design. Since then, she has also qualified as a Fremdsprachenkorrespondentin and worked as an interpreter, translator and CELTA-trained English teacher. For the past 11 years, she has worked for Lufthansa, first as ground crew and then as a flight attendant.
What are the main tasks of a flight attendant?
It’s about asking passengers what they need and what they would like. Often what people need on an aeroplane is a smile and assurance, a friendly person and a little bit of attention. Security and safety are the most important things on board an aeroplane. And that’s our job. And the third is service. Our main task on flight is to make them happy, by giving them food, by giving them drinks and the basics. For that, you don’t need a great deal of language.
Did you do intercultural training with Lufthansa?
Yes, I’ve had the intercultural training twice, and both times it was the same — for ground staff and flight attendants. I was ground staff for four years and I had new training to be a flight attendant, but the intercultural training was the same. It was really interesting because you learned about culture, about gestures — such as when Indians say “yes”, they move their head like we say “no”.
We also learn about food, so depending on the region, the catering is in line with the country. For example, when you go to India, they have a yogurt called raita and that’s what we have on board... In Japan, China and Korea, there are different foods [on flights]. In Korea, bibimbap, and in Japan, we have sushi and nori. The entire training was interesting because you learn about the countries, about the foods and the culture.
We have a tablet with information for each country. There is safety information, information about the country, and especially important now, updated Covid information for us. It also has intercultural information, so you can read up and remind yourself about the habits and the culture wherever you go.
Are there any typical intercultural issues?
On flights to and from the US, for example, a lot of times I hear a sigh, and then somebody will say: “Thank God you speak English!” And it’s because when they travel to Europe, they experience in France or Spain or Portugal, for example, that some people don’t speak English...
The US is a big country, and I remember people asking: “How do you go to Italy but you don’t speak Italian?” And I would say that I speak English, German and Spanish and we get by. It’s partly because the US is so big that they can’t imagine people travel to different countries and don’t speak the language. They can get a little bit nervous because they’re not used to it. Europeans are used to travelling to countries where they don’t speak the language.