Airline Speak

[Ponster]

My most wonderful girlfriend (who will no doubt come across this thread!) gave me a book last night from Bill Bryson called ‘Mother Tongue’ where he says…

“For the airlines of 157 nations (out of 168 in the world), [English] is the agreed International language of discourse”

I was always under the impression that it was the ‘International language of discourse’ for ALL airlines. Who are those that don’t use English and what happens when they try to land in JFK?

[Tapioca_Dextrin]

The ICAO is the international body that deals with this kind of stuff. All pilots on international flights have to be able to speak with the controller on the ground.

In theory, I guess that they could both speak in Klingon, but in practice it’s either English unless they share a common mother tongue.