“Helvetic Airways advises crew to speak languages other than Swiss German during working hours”

2023-05-17 17:08:20

Helvetic Airways

Crew should not speak Swiss German during working hours

The crew of Helvetic Airways is advised not only to speak Swiss German while working. Out of consideration, as the airline explains.

von

Daniel Graf

Christina Pirskanen

published17. May 2023, 19:08

“Out of courtesy to the other crew members who have trouble with the Swiss German language, refrain from speaking only Swiss German during duty hours.”

20min/Michael Scherrer

• In an information bulletin, the airline Helvetic Airways advises its crew that they should not only speak Swiss German during working hours.

• This is mainly out of consideration for employees who do not understand Swiss German.

• This causes the cabin crew to shake their heads.

• Helvetic Airways explains that it is not about a Swiss German ban.

‘Look, out of courtesy to the other crew members involved with the Swiss German language Have trouble from only speaking Swiss German during working hours.» This is in an internal bulletin of the airline Helvetic Airways, which is available for 20 minutes.

The cabin crew and other crew members are therefore asked not only to converse in Swiss German during their working hours – with that all employees understand the language. However, the cabin crew is anything but enthusiastic about it.

«Absurd» and «moronic»

Several Helvetic employees complained to 20 minutes about the section in the bulletin. “I find such a regulation completely pointless, just because some crew members are not Swiss,” says a Helvetic employee. “It’s absurd to change all the company rules because of this,” she adds.

Another crew member assumes that very few would comply with the airline’s request: “It doesn’t matter to anyone. We are a Swiss airline – I don’t see why we shouldn’t speak our language.” Another airline employee fears: “Our values ​​will be lost – we have a Swiss cross on the tail fin.” Such a regulation is “moronic”.

Ticinesi and Romands also have trouble with Swiss German

“Especially in the dressing room, the employees treat each other very like family – there is no question that you adapt if a colleague does not speak Swiss German,” explains Helvetic media spokesman Simon Benz.

In addition, in aviation you would work in a very international working environment: Benz says there have always been employees from home and abroad who first have to get used to Swiss German. “By the way, this also applies to people from Ticino or Romandy,” he adds.

English is the official aviation language

According to Benz, people with protection status S from Ukraine have been working for the Swiss airline since last year. The integration is going extremely well: “The employees are highly motivated, do an excellent job and are valuable members of the Helvetic family – even though they ‘only’ speak Standard German,” he says.

However, Helvetic denies that there is a binding rule that High German must be spoken during working hours. “There is neither a ban nor an instruction,” said media spokesman Benz. However, the airline points out that the official language in aviation is English – which is also recorded in manuals. So Swiss German may be spoken, simply “not only”, as Benz explains.

However, new employees are warned that not everyone in the company understands Swiss German, he says. “But as soon as they are on board, the adaptation happens in a completely natural way.”

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