Good Grief! I thought that pilots from all countries had to be able to conduct their business in English! (or is that racist and discriminatory?)
This is old news.
An international treaty under the auspices of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) requires that all pilots flying internationally be able to communicate in English. One of more famous stories in that regard was a Lufthansa pilot on the ground at a German airport complaining that he had to speak English while in Germany. A British voice came on the air to remind him who had won the war.
It’s not just pilots/aircrew from Asia. Years ago, during the Bosnia operation, I was an ops adviser for my particular aircraft at the combined air operations center (CAOC) in Vicenzia, Italy. All of our business, airborne and on the ground, had to be conducted in English.
Arriving at work one morning, an RAF counterpart asked me, “Did you hear about that AWACS mission crew commander (MCC) who got fired last night?” When I told him I hadn’t he gave me the details. Apparently, something came up and the CAOC Director had to get on the radio with the MCC, a Norwegian.
Apparently, the Norwegian MCC spoke even less English than the Air China crew and after about 20 minutes of non-communication, the night shift director (an American O-6) finally told him to “shut up” and put the “senior English speaker” on the frequency. It turned out to be an American who was one of the strike controllers. They resolved the issue in about a minute and operations returned to normal.
In the morning, the Colonel briefed the American Lt Gen who ran the CAOC during the day. He called the NATO AWACS wing in Gilenkirchen and tore the wing commander a new one. After that, every NATO AWACS MCC I heard on the radio seemed to be an American, a Brit, or a German, Dane or Dutch guy who spoke flawless English.
Working with the French AWACS was another matter entirely. The French had just acquired their E-3s and had no prior experience in the platform. When you talked to them, you typically reached a student on the console who had an instructor looking over his shoulder and another trainee observing as well.
The Brits, bless their heart, figured out the best way to minimize the “threat” from the French AWACS. They developed an ops plan that assigned the Frog E-3 to the orbit over the Adriatic, where they were only allowed to “control” the tanker tracks. And it wasn’t very hard to convince the American three star to buy off on the plan. The French weren’t quite as bad as the Air China crew, but it could be pretty darn close.