I am curious to understand more about the crew compositions on Brussels Airlines. I suppose all staff are bilingual in French and Flemish (actually, trilingual, with English as well) - but what is the most common language on board SN's planes? More Flemish or French? Or really a mish-mash of both, a bit like the Franglais often heard on Air Canada.

Thanks

I would be willing to bet they get around this by using English first for most announcements, just like how LX has their safety video in English. 3 years ago I flew LX GVA-ARN and all of the announcements on board were in English, sans for one welcome announcement prior to departure from the purser which was in French.

USAirALB wrote:

I would be willing to bet they get around this by using English first for most announcements, just like how LX has their safety video in English. 3 years ago I flew LX GVA-ARN and all of the announcements on board were in English, sans for one welcome announcement prior to departure from the purser which was in French.

Crew based at ZRH for LX generally speak french with an example of this being the crew on JFK-GVA, operated by ZRH based crew are typically all french speakers. GVA on the other hand is solely french and no german as I tried it and I was only met with french responses (unfortunately expected). For SN though they hire you if you speak French or Flemish. It's a plus for both but is not required. Had this conversation with an SN pilot and he said the requirements were both before + English which were just too hard especially for French speakers while Flemish speakers generally speak French. Flew JFK-BRU-JFK with them and all announcements were made in all languages while the saftey video is in French and english if I'm not mistaken. Defitnetly a great airline to fly with the language part making them stand out compared to other carriers!

What about GERMAN? German is, along with French and Dutch, one of the official languages of Belgium. The King himself took his oath in all three languages during his inauguration.

Language use is heavily regulated in Belgium. For example, when travelling by train, the order of PAs (French first or Flemish first) changes from station to station because some areas are officially Flamish-speaking and some French-speaking (and they are kind of interwoven is some parts of the country, so the order of languages in the PAs can change several times over the course of the journey). I don't know the rule for airplanes but I am sure there is one: this language thing is just way too sensitive to be left to the crew to decide.

Flemish is not a language. Flemish people speak Dutch. With a 'Flemish' accent but the language is Dutch. Time people learn this. Saying people speak Flemish is like saying Americans speak "American"...

On topic: all Brussels Airlines staff are trilingual Dutch - French - English. (When it comes to the company itself, I think most people are Flemish. The airport is located in Flanders, and it's also the region with the strongest economy) On board you'll hear all languages. Maybe a bit more Dutch than French as there are simply more Flemish people in Belgium (60% of the population).

Boavida wrote:

Flemish is not a language. Flemish people speak Dutch. With a 'Flemish' accent but the language is Dutch. Time people learn this. Saying people speak Flemish is like saying Americans speak "American"...

On topic: all Brussels Airlines staff are trilingual Dutch - French - English. (When it comes to the company itself, I think most people are Flemish. The airport is located in Flanders, and it's also the region with the strongest economy) On board you'll hear all languages. Maybe a bit more Dutch than French as there are simply more Flemish people in Belgium (60% of the population).

Interesting impression, I have had too few crew interactions in a language other than English but my impression has always been that Brussels - while clearly focussing on English to avoid giving preference to either language and potentially also to keep things in line with Lufthansa Group - has been a little more French-heavy in their corporate communications which I always attributed to the strong presence in Francophone Africa and the Brussels business market being largely English-(whether genuinely international or Flemish folks used to not being understood while traveling) and French-speaking.

It would certainly be Dutch. Every time I have flown SN and TUI Belgium I have noticed the crews are mostly Flemish-speaking (e.g. they always speak Dutch among them) and speak French with their strong accent and with a certain disdain to their co-citizens Belgian French-native speakers (Belgian French accent is very noticeable).

That it is because the way the language are in the country. Dutch is the prestige language in Belgium. French is the "poor" language. Most young people in Dutch-speaking Belgium barely can go by French.

I personally don't like the attitude of most FAs I have encountered in both carriers. But it is a very arrogant attitude in customer service you encounter almost everywhere in Flanders (at least not my cup of tea).

workhorse wrote:

Language use is heavily regulated in Belgium. For example, when travelling by train, the order of PAs (French first or Flemish first) changes from station to station because some areas are officially Flamish-speaking and some French-speaking (and they are kind of interwoven is some parts of the country, so the order of languages in the PAs can change several times over the course of the journey). I don't know the rule for airplanes but I am sure there is one: this language thing is just way too sensitive to be left to the crew to decide.

Sounds like Canada. There, the order of announcements on the train changes at the Quebec/Ontario border.

SCQ83 wrote:

It would certainly be Dutch. Every time I have flown SN and TUI Belgium I have noticed the crews are mostly Flemish-speaking (e.g. they always speak Dutch among them) and speak French with their strong accent and with a certain disdain to their co-citizens Belgian French-native speakers (Belgian French accent is very noticeable).

That it is because the way the language are in the country. Dutch is the prestige language in Belgium. French is the "poor" language. Most young people in Dutch-speaking Belgium barely can go by French.

I personally don't like the attitude of most FAs I have encountered in both carriers. But it is a very arrogant attitude in customer service you encounter almost everywhere in Flanders (at least not my cup of tea).

Really? The experience I have with my Belgian friends is that pretty much all the Flemish speak French as well, while all the French-speaking Belgians refuse to learn Flemish. I have yet to encounter any French Belgian able and/or willing to speak anything else but French. But that's my personal experience.

Back on topic, I've flown on SN only once. Didn't notice or care which language they spoke as I was too excited for my first flight ever.

SCQ83 wrote:

It would certainly be Dutch. Every time I have flown SN and TUI Belgium I have noticed the crews are mostly Flemish-speaking (e.g. they always speak Dutch among them) and speak French with their strong accent and with a certain disdain to their co-citizens Belgian French-native speakers (Belgian French accent is very noticeable).

That it is because the way the language are in the country. Dutch is the prestige language in Belgium. French is the "poor" language. Most young people in Dutch-speaking Belgium barely can go by French.

I personally don't like the attitude of most FAs I have encountered in both carriers. But it is a very arrogant attitude in customer service you encounter almost everywhere in Flanders (at least not my cup of tea).

??

Most people in Flanders can (and will) speak French while in Wallonia and Brussels people can't or refuse to speak Dutch. This is the reality. I once visited a hospital in "bilingual" Brussels: not a single staff member spoke Dutch. Also "arrogant attitude", SCQ83? Btw, in Flemish schools all students learn French, while in Walloon schools Dutch isn't even mandatory....

The fact that most staff of SN and TB are Flemish, is simply because Flemish people have more language skills. It's not their fault. If the Walloon education system was a bit better, maybe more staff would be Walloon... You only have to blame yourselves.

Drucocu wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

It would certainly be Dutch. Every time I have flown SN and TUI Belgium I have noticed the crews are mostly Flemish-speaking (e.g. they always speak Dutch among them) and speak French with their strong accent and with a certain disdain to their co-citizens Belgian French-native speakers (Belgian French accent is very noticeable).

That it is because the way the language are in the country. Dutch is the prestige language in Belgium. French is the "poor" language. Most young people in Dutch-speaking Belgium barely can go by French.

I personally don't like the attitude of most FAs I have encountered in both carriers. But it is a very arrogant attitude in customer service you encounter almost everywhere in Flanders (at least not my cup of tea).

Really? The experience I have with my Belgian friends is that pretty much all the Flemish speak French as well, while all the French-speaking Belgians refuse to learn Flemish. I have yet to encounter any French Belgian able and/or willing to speak anything else but French. But that's my personal experience.

Back on topic, I've flown on SN only once. Didn't notice or care which language they spoke as I was too excited for my first flight ever.

This is exactly the kind of old stereotype that Flemish people would like the world to believe. And while this reflected a certain reality of some 30-40 years ago, times have changed. The Flemish youth has become increasingly proud of her language, which is good... but then also increasingly bad or reluctant to speak French. On the other hand, some areas of Wallonia (Brabant Wallon for example) have in the mean time understood the importance of Flemish for obtaining jobs in large companies and since 10-20 years, you find many "language immersion schools" where French speaking kids are having over 50% of their courses completely in Dutch (by a Dutch native speaker). Those schools have become increasingly popular and have a long waiting list. A concept that is by the way absolutely forbidden in the Flanders.

My own family is composed of people from both regions and most people are perfectly multilingual so there is no fixed rule. It's also highly dependent on the type of job/life people have. There is no need for a baker in the middle of Flanders or Wallonia to speak anything else than the dialect of his village (it's unlikely he ever faces customers from the other side of the language border). With a country that small, people working in larger companies on the other hand, will always adapt themselves to the others and will even need to cross the border to sell in the Netherlands, Germany or France and speak the language.

Back on the topic, the largest proportion of the SN staff speaks Flemish (and this has a lot to do with the location of Brussels airport and the proportion of Flemish speakers in Belgium). But airlines recruiters love to hire people that are trilingual or even better. I have never noticed a flight attendant at SN that couldn't speak at least FR, NL and EN and many of them can also do a bit of German, Spanish or Italian on top...

Fascinating country. I really (seriously) need to vacation there and see (hear) this for myself. Someone once told me they were on an extended assignment in Brussels. He said the chocolate was fantastic. He never mentioned the cultural frictions.

Boavida wrote:

Flemish is not a language. Flemish people speak Dutch. With a 'Flemish' accent but the language is Dutch. Time people learn this. Saying people speak Flemish is like saying Americans speak "American"...

While technically correct, in practice it is a bit different. Much more like the UK in the sense that regions have some wildly varied dialects and coming there as a Dutch person can still be a bit jarring as it will not be Dutch what you are hearing... Speaking as a Dutch person with many Belgian friends in many regions of Belgium. Man, even when they try to speak "proper" Dutch it can be hard to understand them.

seb76 wrote:

Drucocu wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

It would certainly be Dutch. Every time I have flown SN and TUI Belgium I have noticed the crews are mostly Flemish-speaking (e.g. they always speak Dutch among them) and speak French with their strong accent and with a certain disdain to their co-citizens Belgian French-native speakers (Belgian French accent is very noticeable).

That it is because the way the language are in the country. Dutch is the prestige language in Belgium. French is the "poor" language. Most young people in Dutch-speaking Belgium barely can go by French.

I personally don't like the attitude of most FAs I have encountered in both carriers. But it is a very arrogant attitude in customer service you encounter almost everywhere in Flanders (at least not my cup of tea).

Really? The experience I have with my Belgian friends is that pretty much all the Flemish speak French as well, while all the French-speaking Belgians refuse to learn Flemish. I have yet to encounter any French Belgian able and/or willing to speak anything else but French. But that's my personal experience.

Back on topic, I've flown on SN only once. Didn't notice or care which language they spoke as I was too excited for my first flight ever.

This is exactly the kind of old stereotype that Flemish people would like the world to believe. And while this reflected a certain reality of some 30-40 years ago, times have changed. The Flemish youth has become increasingly proud of her language, which is good... but then also increasingly bad or reluctant to speak French. On the other hand, some areas of Wallonia (Brabant Wallon for example) have in the mean time understood the importance of Flemish for obtaining jobs in large companies and since 10-20 years, you find many "language immersion schools" where French speaking kids are having over 50% of their courses completely in Dutch (by a Dutch native speaker). Those schools have become increasingly popular and have a long waiting list. A concept that is by the way absolutely forbidden in the Flanders.

My own family is composed of people from both regions and most people are perfectly multilingual so there is no fixed rule. It's also highly dependent on the type of job/life people have. There is no need for a baker in the middle of Flanders or Wallonia to speak anything else than the dialect of his village (it's unlikely he ever faces customers from the other side of the language border). With a country that small, people working in larger companies on the other hand, will always adapt themselves to the others and will even need to cross the border to sell in the Netherlands, Germany or France and speak the language.

Back on the topic, the largest proportion of the SN staff speaks Flemish (and this has a lot to do with the location of Brussels airport and the proportion of Flemish speakers in Belgium). But airlines recruiters love to hire people that are trilingual or even better. I have never noticed a flight attendant at SN that couldn't speak at least FR, NL and EN and many of them can also do a bit of German, Spanish or Italian on top...

Thanks for your insight. As a Dutch guy whenever I'm in Belgium I just speak English. Given that my general experiences with Belgians aren't that great as my French sucks and in Flanders there's a general attitude of looking down on people who speak "northern Dutch". Let alone that some of the dialects are highly mutually unintelligible. I even had that problem when I worked in the border regions, me and my co-workers just couldn't understand each other sometimes.

There are however plenty of people who can look past the differences, and I usually have great experiences when visiting Belgium.

Does SN strive to schedule their staff who speak other languages outside of NL/FR/EN on specific flights? Such as Spanish speakers on Spanish routes, etcetera? That's a thing many airlines can improve on, and perhaps SN coming from a highly multilingual nation has gotten a better grasp of the importance of having a native speaker on board than other airlines.

USAirALB wrote:

I would be willing to bet they get around this by using English first for most announcements, just like how LX has their safety video in English. 3 years ago I flew LX GVA-ARN and all of the announcements on board were in English, sans for one welcome announcement prior to departure from the purser which was in French.

I second that. Even on KL short haul flights I have more than once experienced that the only Dutch announcement was that the rest of announcements will be made in English.

As far as I know announcements start in french outbound from brussels followed by Dutch then English..in bound To BRU they start in Dutch then french then English. The 3 languages are always used. All the crew speak Dutch french and English. Some french speaking crew speak weak Dutch, but they do. And some Dutch speaking ones speak weak french. Many if not most speak both languages very well.

lesfalls wrote:

USAirALB wrote:

I would be willing to bet they get around this by using English first for most announcements, just like how LX has their safety video in English. 3 years ago I flew LX GVA-ARN and all of the announcements on board were in English, sans for one welcome announcement prior to departure from the purser which was in French.

Crew based at ZRH for LX generally speak french with an example of this being the crew on JFK-GVA, operated by ZRH based crew are typically all french speakers. GVA on the other hand is solely french and no german as I tried it and I was only met with french responses (unfortunately expected).

Apparently it evolved since last time I flew LX (some years ago). At that time, they seemed not to bother too much about french. I even remember a ZRH-YUL flight, on which I guess that french speakers made probably at least two third of passengers (whether from Quebec, french speaking Switzerland or France) but most crew were almost unable to speak reasonable french.

The problem is obviously deeper at SN, with language being a very political question in Belgium.

lesfalls wrote:

Crew based at ZRH for LX generally speak french with an example of this being the crew on JFK-GVA, operated by ZRH based crew are typically all french speakers.

Are you sure, I doubt this. All my flights with swiss ex ZRH were in German first, followed by French!

Boavida wrote:

all Brussels Airlines staff are trilingual Dutch - French - English. (When it comes to the company itself, I think most people are Flemish. The airport is located in Flanders, and it's also the region with the strongest economy) On board you'll hear all languages.

Not true at all. Most of the SN staff based in DUS can't speak Dutch, nor French - only German and English. The crew base there is ex Privatair/AirBerlin staff...

Drucocu wrote:

seb76 wrote:

Drucocu wrote:

Does SN strive to schedule their staff who speak other languages outside of NL/FR/EN on specific flights? Such as Spanish speakers on Spanish routes, etcetera? That's a thing many airlines can improve on, and perhaps SN coming from a highly multilingual nation has gotten a better grasp of the importance of having a native speaker on board than other airlines.

I don't work for SN so I might be wrong, but in many EU airlines (and especially in the case of SN who's fleet is rather limited in size), you see that the planning focuses mainly on optimizing the usage of the planes and their crews by finding a good mix between longer and shorter legs to fill their schedules. So most of the time, the crews don't commute between the two same locations. Instead, a plane and it's crew for that half day will go to Spain very early in the morning and Sweden later in the day etc... It could be too difficult for planning to also include the staff's languages parameter in the equation...

debonair wrote:

lesfalls wrote:

Are you sure, I doubt this. All my flights with swiss ex ZRH were in German first, followed by French!

I'm sure I've been on short-haul LX flights out of ZRH to non-French speaking countries where they haven't spoken French at all, maybe I wasn't paying attention. Not sure how far French would get you in many parts of German speaking Swtizerland, the language borders are clearer than in Belgium. My impression is that many people in German speaking Switzerland are quite limited in French. As a non-native German speaker who learned High German, I tend to stick to English in Switzerland as well, I struggle to understand many words in Swiss German when it's spoken (same in Austria to an extent although I find it's easier to tune in).

mozart wrote:

I am curious to understand more about the crew compositions on Brussels Airlines. I suppose all staff are bilingual in French and Flemish (actually, trilingual, with English as well) - but what is the most common language on board SN's planes? More Flemish or French? Or really a mish-mash of both, a bit like the Franglais often heard on Air Canada.

Thanks

Hello there, thanks for your question. Ex-SN F/A here.

All SN F/A have to speak Dutch, French and English. Many also speak other languages such as German, Spanish, Italian, ...

During my time there, announcements were made, in order, NL-FR-EN ex-BRU and FR-NL-EN on the return flight, something akin to regulations on board trains or in Canada. Maybe the order has changed since. It was also up to the F/A doing the announcements to respect the order, which some forgot sometimes. No big deal.

In my experience Flemish-Dutch is the standard language for staff, but it can vary depending on the crew. If the flight crew is Francophone for instance (pilots don't have to speak both languages and there are a number of pilots who only speak Dutch, or French + English of course - mostly expats from France, UK, etc.).

Furthermore, the cliché I've read here that Flemish people all speak French and that French-speakers never speak Dutch doesn't hold true in the least. It's sad to see what I assume to be Belgians spread such drivel and hate.

Does SN strive to schedule their staff who speak other languages outside of NL/FR/EN on specific flights? Such as Spanish speakers on Spanish routes, etcetera? That's a thing many airlines can improve on, and perhaps SN coming from a highly multilingual nation has gotten a better grasp of the importance of having a native speaker on board than other airlines.

Unfortunately no. :-/ I think such a small airline can't afford to have staff scheduled on a specific route on linguistic grounds. Honestly I'm not sure it matters that much, seeing that the level of interaction with the passengers is ultimately very limited.

seb76 wrote:

Drucocu wrote:

seb76 wrote:

I don't work for SN so I might be wrong, but in many EU airlines (and especially in the case of SN who's fleet is rather limited in size), you see that the planning focuses mainly on optimizing the usage of the planes and their crews by finding a good mix between longer and shorter legs to fill their schedules. So most of the time, the crews don't commute between the two same locations. Instead, a plane and it's crew for that half day will go to Spain very early in the morning and Sweden later in the day etc... It could be too difficult for planning to also include the staff's languages parameter in the equation...

Exactly and I don't think anyone in Europe expects that when flying inside Europe on a foreign airline they will speak anything but the native language(s) of the airline and English. The main compeition comes from LCCs like FR who will have staff based at BRU who can only speak English and their native languages and not many passengers really seem to care.

Let’s keep the discussion on the topic of which languages are spoken on board planes. Arguments over the attitudes of different groups people towards another language are not relevant to this thread, nor to the forum in general.

Considering Belgium, it could depend on which stand they parked it at BRU.

Uw vlucht vertrekt van Gate B-Drie (B3).... (Your flight departs from B3)

Een gate-wijziging... ******* , Un changement de porte,

Votre vol part de la porte B-Quatre. (you flight departs from B4)

FlyRow wrote:

Considering Belgium, it could depend on which stand they parked it at BRU.

Uw vlucht vertrekt van Gate B-Drie (B3).... (Your flight departs from B3)

Een gate-wijziging... ******* , Un changement de porte,

Votre vol part de la porte B-Quatre. (you flight departs from B4)

You're joking but a few years ago ticket machines at the airport's station where only in dutch because of Flemish language law, until they voted an exemption for this station.

I was fortunate enough to get a jumpseat ride on an SN AVRO100 from MXP to BRU. The flight crew spoke Flemish natively and had some good-natured fun with me when I thanked them for the opportunity in French. They spoke English to me, Flemish to each other, English to Eurocontrol and, as I recall, a mix of French and English to the Cabin Crew.

Mod use only.

In the end of the day, the cabin announcements are made in three languages at Brussels Airlines and there is nothing great about that. The announcements are simply never ending, how boring. They should just limit them to English.

We had a nightstop in Monrovia for a few years and besides is there was 1 other airline flying to that place and that was Brussels airlines. We both were put in the same hotel (probably the only available) and what I mostly saw was a Dutch/flemish speaking cockpit- and French speaking cabincrew.
Which often was unfortunate because when we (Dutch speaking) socialized with Brussels cockpit, all was well, but when their cabin crew joined it often turned to French, which most of us spoke not fluent enough to keep it together as one group.

But we sure had many a nice nights there..

I've had four flights on SN.
On two of them, the announcements were in Flemish, French and English.
On the other two the announcements were only in English, but those flights were charter flights exclusively with foreigners onboard

mozart wrote:

I am curious to understand more about the crew compositions on Brussels Airlines. I suppose all staff are bilingual in French and Flemish (actually, trilingual, with English as well) - but what is the most common language on board SN's planes? More Flemish or French? Or really a mish-mash of both, a bit like the Franglais often heard on Air Canada.

Thanks

When I was a Delta flight attendant in the 90s, I was part of a program wherein I worked on only SABENA flights for a year as a DL flight attendant (they would put a SABENA FA on our DL flights too). What I always noticed (although anecdotal) was if a group of SN flight attendants was together speaking Dutch, and a French-speaking flight attendant walked up, they would all switch to French. However, it rarely was the other way; all French speakers joined by a Flemish FA would not switch to Dutch but keep speaking French. Just my observation.

delta2ual wrote:

mozart wrote:

I am curious to understand more about the crew compositions on Brussels Airlines. I suppose all staff are bilingual in French and Flemish (actually, trilingual, with English as well) - but what is the most common language on board SN's planes? More Flemish or French? Or really a mish-mash of both, a bit like the Franglais often heard on Air Canada.

Thanks

When I was a Delta flight attendant in the 90s, I was part of a program wherein I worked on only SABENA flights for a year as a DL flight attendant (they would put a SABENA FA on our DL flights too). What I always noticed (although anecdotal) was if a group of SN flight attendants was together speaking Dutch, and a French-speaking flight attendant walked up, they would all switch to French. However, it rarely was the other way; all French speakers joined by a Flemish FA would not switch to Dutch but keep speaking French. Just my observation.

How come was this system in place? Sounds quite interesting.

eurowings wrote:

debonair wrote:

lesfalls wrote:

Are you sure, I doubt this. All my flights with swiss ex ZRH were in German first, followed by French!

I'm sure I've been on short-haul LX flights out of ZRH to non-French speaking countries where they haven't spoken French at all, maybe I wasn't paying attention. Not sure how far French would get you in many parts of German speaking Swtizerland, the language borders are clearer than in Belgium. My impression is that many people in German speaking Switzerland are quite limited in French. As a non-native German speaker who learned High German, I tend to stick to English in Switzerland as well, I struggle to understand many words in Swiss German when it's spoken (same in Austria to an extent although I find it's easier to tune in).

Not speaking french but if you had to approach them they generally would speak french. The Swiss education system is very embrasive of languages. Many of the countries population speak French and Germany perfectly with some italian too. The only thing I've heard though is the french side is less embrasive compared to the German and Italian states of teaching other languages from rumors, watching SFR documentariers (National Swiss television) and some experiences on LX that I've had.

Brokkenpiloot wrote:

I second that. Even on KL short haul flights I have more than once experienced that the only Dutch announcement was that the rest of announcements will be made in English.

On KLM flights from Amsterdam to Paris passengers are welcomed in Dutch, French and English. The security announcements are in English only.

I don't know which language the crew use with each other but on the short flight HAM-BRU a few years back I had to listen to all the cabin announcements delivered in four languages: English, German, French and Flemish.

hagerstrom wrote:

I don't know which language the crew use with each other but on the short flight HAM-BRU a few years back I had to listen to all the cabin announcements delivered in four languages: English, German, French and Flemish.

That makes sense. In my experiences, i've always had English, French and Dutch announcements. I've never had announcements in German. Perhaps that's only on a select number of flights.