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Comment by pc86 | Hacker News Reader

Because you're wrong. The lingua franca of the air is English. I've heard ATC recordings in multiple countries and they're all in English, including ones between non-native English speakers. If you come on this frequency and you don't speak French, you have no context at all for what's going on. It's incredibly dangerous and it shouldn't ever happen.

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I'm afraid you're the one who is wrong. Yes, when a common language is needed, it is English, but native languages are explicitly allowed by EU law.

Common language is always needed - this is CDG, a large airport with many flights. It is important that all planes have situational awareness. If half are speaking French, how does the pilot coming from Seoul have situational awareness? What if he's sitting on the runway and doesn't know that the ATC just gave clearance to land in French to a pilot on the runway he's currently on?

ATC and pilots for commercial airlines should only be speaking English, regardless of their native tongue and where they are.

It's pretty important - and it is actually EU law: https://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/29531/air-traffic-cont...

Unfortunately it only applies to airports with 50k international flights per year - the bar should be much lower than that. But of course, CDG qualifies.

Situational awareness in controlled air space comes to a large degree from air traffic control. Not from listening to communicatiom between traffic control and other planes.

It's not consistent. I believe in some countries it's all English. In Germany, big airports are English, and small airports are German. In the couple of small airports I've flown out of in France, it's French.

I've heard of some countries where the controller will speak to you in whichever language you speak to them, which can lead to issues with situational awareness if you're the only one on the frequency speaking English and you don't know where all of the other planes are.

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