English is the international language of aviation, but to what extent is it actually used? At an airport like Moscow, do the ATCs and local Russian pilots (not foreign airlines, but Russian airlines) often just slip into using Russian every now and then, maybe like 60% of the time, because it feels more natural?
Someone may be able to provide more authoritative information that what I have, but here’s what I can offer. This became an issue in Quebec, which is very protective of their French-language heritage. They tried to pass legislation mandating that all air traffic communications in the province be in French. This was laughed out of existence as preposterous and contrary to air traffic conventions in the entire world, as a matter of safety. However, my understanding is that this rule applies only to international airports (and major air traffic control centers), and that general aviation pilots and ATC do communicate in French in the smaller Quebec airports, and small local airports in other countries may use the local language.
That said, the surprising thing here is that France – with their linguistic passion similar to that of Quebec – appears to be the only country in the world in which French is frequently used on international commercial flights.
Generally speaking, not as much as you might think. English is the ligua franca of aviation. And in any city where you’re likely to encounter a goodly deal of foreign traffic, it is even more important that everyone is on the same page.
It’s worth noting that Center/Local, Tower, and Ramp frequencies are listened into by as many as hundreds of crews at a time. Things are sporty enough when everyone understands everyone else. We do what we can to try and not make it worse.
The issue in Quebec was not whether all ATC should be in French. Even the separatist party was not nutty enough to advocate that. It was whether it should all be in English. Should a private pilot landing in a small local airport be required to speak to the controller in English. The argument was that all the pilots coming in should be able to follow all the conversations. I would have raised a different issue. Whether the controllers might get confused and give someone instructions in the wrong language. I believed it was resolved that at Montreal International airport (Trudeau) was English only but that French could be used elsewhere.
It’s indeed possible that they were trying to introduce French to air traffic control in addition to English, rather than banning English altogether. This New York Times piece has some more info:
The pilots’ union, whose principal officers are English‐speaking, brought the national air services to a standstill for nine days last summer when the Government proposed to extend the use of French to the two international airports in Montreal. The union insisted that Canada must comply with the worldwide recognittion of English as the universal language of aviation.
The pilots returned to work when the Government agreed to make an intensive study of the possible effects on air safety if the use of French were extended, a concession that infuriated French Canadians.
So English remains the sole language of ATC at both of Montreal’s international airports (although the distantly-located YMX is now only used for cargo) but French is indeed spoken at smaller airports including Quebec City, which is actually an international airport:
I will not say that Canadian airspace is unsafe. It is one of the safest.
But as a pilot that goes into YQB on a regular basis, ie weelky.
I find that my situational awareness is greatly reduced in the YQB control zone because of the mix in languages. I am usually the lone english speaking aircraft with 4 or 5 others speaking french, and I have no idea where they are or what they are doing.
And the guys in the YQB tower are preloaded to be pissed off if you make an issue of it.
Waiting in position to T/O, the tower guy finally came back to us after a very long french transmission, and cleared us for T/O.
My partner asked about the position of the A/C that the tower guy had just spoken with in french.
He was told, “you worry about flying your plane, and I will worry about controlling the aircraft”
Totally unprofessional, but quite typical of the French and their language attitude. It was more important to him to try and make the language not appear to be a safety issue, than to provide information to a requesting flight crew.
But, again, it’s far worse in France (per my other link) where French and English are both spoken at CDG, one of the world’s largest international airports with flights in and out from all over the world, and probably at all other airports, too.
If everyone can hear all the conversations, then at a busy airport, wouldn’t there be a babble of voices over the radio most of the time?
Everyone is listening all the time, that does not mean they’re all talking at the same time.
It’s not just tiny airports. Even at Montréal-Trudeau international (Dorval, YUL, with 160000 aircraft movements per year), controllers do address French-speaking pilots in French very often, from Piper Cubs to airliners. They default to English if they don’t know. Everybody is expected to understand English, and they do.
You can listen here (search for “YUL”).
Keep in mind that, when a flight controller is addressing a particular aircraft, they start their address with the plane’s call sign, either “Yankee Foxtrot Lima Lima” (which is the same in all languages) or “Air France quatre trois sept”. So a pilot who doesn’t speak French can still easily determine if something is addressed to somebody else.
It’s been going on for 40 years now, and it works very well, at least in controlled airspace where you have a bilingual person in charge of maintaining airplane separation, etc.
In uncontrolled airspace, on the en-route radio frequencies, where small aircraft A is supposed to report where it is (“5 kilomètres au nord de Ste-Anne-de-la-Pérade”), so that small aircraft B and C will know where to look for it and avoid a collision, it does reduce safety margins somewhat. And it makes non-French-speaking pilots freak out a bit. I haven’t heard of a crash related to this, though.
Do ATCs default to local language in emergencies if they feel the pilot isn’t “getting it” enough in English and the local language is needed to hammer a point home?
But on that last point, knowing that it’s addressed to someone else doesn’t help you understand what the hell they’re saying, hence the situational awareness issue with safety. As for Montreal (along with Quebec City) – wow! So the nutters in France aren’t the only ones in the world putting safety at risk! I listened to the Montreal ATC and while it’s mostly English, there’s a fair peppering of French.
The pilot may not speak the local language.
And flip it around - there’s lots of unilingue francophones in Quebec. Are only anglos and bilingual francophones to be eligible for pilot’s licences, even in areas of Quebec that are largely francophone?
According to ICAO standards, yes, since English is the ICAO recognized language of aviation and they administer a proficiency test for it. And this is the case in many countries. In Canada, however, English and/or French proficiency is acceptable for pilots, which many disagree with.
One may recall that the worst aircraft accident in history, the collision of two 747s on the ground at Tenerife in 1977, was caused by a combination of miscommunication between the tower and one of the aircraft, and the crew of each aircraft not being aware of what the other one was doing. As a result, a KLM 747 began its takeoff run in fog thinking it had clearance, and not realizing that a Pan Am 747 was still taxiing on the runway. It wasn’t an obvious language problem but it was definitely a lack of clear communication. It was exacerbated by two transmissions occurring at the same time and interfering with each other, causing a critical message to be missed and, again, worsening a situation where the two crew lacked proper situational awareness of each other’s aircraft.
Seriously? A link to a message board post on a site with the name “Rumour Network”?
That’s supposed to be a cite in GQ? 
Yep. PPRuNe is one of the most authoritative aviation sites out there:
The Professional Pilots Rumour Network, or PPRuNe, is an Internet forum catering to airline pilots and others in the aviation industry … PPRuNe is known in European and Anglophone pilot circles and is cited by media in reports relating to aviation. Since the site has more than 250,000 registered members, many of them pilots, the site is sometimes at the center of debates about aviation issues in the news.
I strongly disagree. Anonymous or semi-anonymous posts on a message board are not cites, by any reasonable definition.
It’s the PM’s job to sort that. And yes, that is a very busy job in some airspaces.
This is true. But if you were to dial into LAX’s 121.75, at around 22.30, you will find an absolutely incredible barrage of communications.
I pick this as an example because it was there and then that I had my IOE at a former employer. It is no exaggeration to say that it took about ten minutes to get a word in edge-wise. We ended up pushing off the block late as a result.
Writing a Delay Report was also something I got good at that week.
They will in an emergency, yes. As well, if they feel the need, even in English, they will drop jargon and speak plainly (Pun not intended).
A few years back at my home field, a CZ A388 was pushing off the stand. Directed to “push tail-north onto Sierra turn south on Bravo, hold short at 25L”, the crew just wasn’t getting it and there were multiple repetitions. Finally, Ramp Tower simply told them to “Swing your nose so you’re seeing the oil refinery. When you’re unhooked, go to the end of the taxiway and take a left.”
That, it is. But I would caution that although there is a lot of gold to be sifted, there’s a damned lot of silt too.
Probably not as bad as, say A.net that way, but it would not be hard to get a bad read.
Sure, but my reference to PPRuNe there wasn’t in support of some contentious debate point, it was just an interesting anecdote about the bilingual (and in fact mostly French) airspace at YQB, a fact not in dispute, and how one unilingual English-speaking pilot finds it problematic in terms of situational awareness, nothing more.
What does PM stand for?
Sorry to keep asking questions, but I find this stuff fascinating.
“Pilot Monitoring”. The other guy is the “Pilot Flying”.