Brussels Airlines in 2019

[jan_olieslagers]

So typical of certain Belgians, especially in Brussels: when federalisation suits them, they'll use all of it, as in the case of the Brussels noise regulation. When they find it less convenient, they'll cry murder.

NB the remark about Frau Foerster is quite relevant, though!

[Ansett]

Look at the very bottom of the page :
https://www.brusselsairlines.com/en-be/corporate/
https://www.brusselsairlines.com/nl-be/corporate/
https://www.brusselsairlines.com/fr-be/corporate/

[saratoga]

I think they have more important worries than that language issue right now.

[Darjeeling]

Things don't really change at Brussels Airlines... oups sorry... Flemish Airlines !!

https://www.lalibre.be/economie/entrepr ... 3887e3cd91

The only official "internal" language is "strikt nederlands" and nothing else.

That makes sense, as written in the article Brussels airlines and Zaventem are located in Flanders.

When it mattered (begging money to Wallonia and Brussels for DAT/SN back in november 2001) the use of french was tolerated to explain that we needed to build a new "national flagship carrier" under the ashes of SABENA.
Fact is, like pointed in that article Brussels Airlines is under Flemish stranglehold. I'm sure that french speaking travel agents, french and french speaking travellers and french travel agents (+Quebec ?) should be informed of how the majority of people at SN denigrate anyone daring to speak french. As a friend told me, when you are french-speaking at Brussels Airlines they always have the mean to let you know that you are tolerated and not accepted.
One day, I should thoroughly explain you how cabin crew are hired and the selection process: 20% of the interview in French, 20% in English, 60% in Flemish. Hence the language skills (English included) are dramatically deteriorating within SN cabin crew community. But the "Flemish Between one-self" spirit has surely improved...
... and I'm not the one frustrated in life (to anticipate any further assumptions).

[Passenger]

That's bul....t Brussels Airlines official address is in Brussels it's a Belgium Airlines why is this they can forget me!

B******t. You are not involved in this internal language issue. And you are wrong. The official address is irrelevant for employment matters. What matters, is plaats van tewerkstelling. Location of the employment. And that is B.house, Ringlaan 26, B-1831 Diegem. Diegem is Flemish soil, hence Dutch is the only language to be used for official communication (= related to legislation). Official communication may be done in French, German and/or English too. But allways in Dutch too. Just like Gert Verhulst and Studio 100, Flemish owner of half of Durbuy and Plopsa Coo, has to communicate official stuff to his Flemish staff there in French.

Regarding commercial contacts: legislation is: the use of language is free. And there, Brussels Airlines respects their clients: when they do know the language of their clients, they communicate in that language. When they don't know it, they communicate in one language (EN), in two languages (NL-FR) or in three languages (NL-FR-EN).

Brussels Airport is a different story. 1930 Zaventem. Thus official communication must be done in Dutch only, but the Flemish Parliament has accepted an exception for Brussels Airport. Hence it's in three languages there, order NL-FR-EN. Ad valvas communication is probably in Dutch only.

[lumumba]

No problem but I don't fly with them anymore....

[lumumba]

So typical of certain Belgians, especially in Brussels: when federalisation suits them, they'll use all of it, as in the case of the Brussels noise regulation. When they find it less convenient, they'll cry murder.

NB the remark about Frau Foerster is quite relevant, though!

You make a mistake, it seems to me a logic step not allowed to let take off planes over an area that is a heavily populated....

Anyway this was already much discussed and Flanders proved in the last election that they want to be rid off Belgium and that's exactly what's happening at SN!

[Stij]

Cool it guys...

Stij

[Inquirer]

I have to say passenger is right:
By federal law, a company MUST use the official language at the location of the site in its official communication with ALL of its employees overthere, so for their activities at their HQ situated in Diegem, that is indeed Dutch.

On a side note: since many French speaking people in Belgium somehow seem to think there is some sort of linguistic parity in our country, it often comes as a shock to them to see how dominant Dutch has become outside of the political bubble where a strict parity is indeed imposed, but it shouldn't come as a surprise: 60% of Belgian people are Dutch speaking, 70% of our country's economic activity is generated by Dutch speaking people and 80% of Belgian export is from the Dutch speaking part of our country, so obviously Belgium is by all nominative parameters other than the law a perdominantly Dutch speaking country with a significant French speaking minority, just as Switzerland is a predominantly Germanophonic one, also with a French speaking minority.

Much to do about nothing, IMHO.

[jan_olieslagers]

Indeed right to put things into perspective, and to compare with the only more or less comparable country, at least in Europe, that is Switzerland.
And also right that there are more important issues, at least for now, and probably for a long time after.

@Passenger: thanks for pointing out the exception for 1930 Zaventem, that was new to me.

[Darjeeling]

Full article FYI:

[flightlover]

And this is the root cause of the linguistic problems in Belgium. Will any Walloon company translate every communication in Dutch if they have no sites situated in Flanders? I doubt it. But when french speaking people come to work or live in Flanders they want any communication in French. Why? because they do not feel Dutch is a language needed to be educated in school. It's just an optional course for them.

There are so many unemployed workers in Brussels that, if they wanted to learn Dutch, could be working at the airport.

[Ansett]

Well, Guys ! I think that on an aviation geeks site we have pretty well exhausted the point and time has come to turn the corner on it. Everybody will draw its own conclusions.

As Saratoga rightly pointed out in an earlier post : they must have more important issues to deal with at the moment.

Can we get back to (strictly) aviation ?

[lumumba]

And this is the root cause of the linguistic problems in Belgium. Will any Walloon company translate every communication in Dutch if they have no sites situated in Flanders? I doubt it. But when french speaking people come to work or live in Flanders they want any communication in French. Why? because they do not feel Dutch is a language needed to be educated in school. It's just an optional course for them.

There are so many unemployed workers in Brussels that, if they wanted to learn Dutch, could be working at the airport.

Ok Brussels Airport is in Flandres let ALL planes fly over Flanders and not Brussels!

[sean1982]

And this is the root cause of the linguistic problems in Belgium. Will any Walloon company translate every communication in Dutch if they have no sites situated in Flanders? I doubt it. But when french speaking people come to work or live in Flanders they want any communication in French. Why? because they do not feel Dutch is a language needed to be educated in school. It's just an optional course for them.

There are so many unemployed workers in Brussels that, if they wanted to learn Dutch, could be working at the airport.

Ok Brussels Airport is in Flandres let ALL planes fly over Flanders and not Brussels!

What petty childish discussions here wth ....

[Conti764]

And this is the root cause of the linguistic problems in Belgium. Will any Walloon company translate every communication in Dutch if they have no sites situated in Flanders? I doubt it. But when french speaking people come to work or live in Flanders they want any communication in French. Why? because they do not feel Dutch is a language needed to be educated in school. It's just an optional course for them.

There are so many unemployed workers in Brussels that, if they wanted to learn Dutch, could be working at the airport.

They already do. A lot of employees at BRU are French speaking.

I can't open the full article. Was the representative denied access to the meeting? Was it legally right to do so? If so, well done by the prick who felt the need to get this story out in times when SN has more urgent issues to take care of...

[travellover]

Everyone from anywhere (in Belgium or abroad) might have to take a plane at/to BRU, everyone in Brussels, in Flanders and Wallonia can share any noise disadvantage from BRU. Each at a given time might need to understand the languages of other people, so ball in the center. And back to aviation matters.

[Jetter]

And this is the root cause of the linguistic problems in Belgium. Will any Walloon company translate every communication in Dutch if they have no sites situated in Flanders? I doubt it. But when french speaking people come to work or live in Flanders they want any communication in French. Why? because they do not feel Dutch is a language needed to be educated in school. It's just an optional course for them.

There are so many unemployed workers in Brussels that, if they wanted to learn Dutch, could be working at the airport.

Ok Brussels Airport is in Flandres let ALL planes fly over Flanders and not Brussels!

Brussels is the capital of Flanders so I don't see the logic here.

The people complaining about this rational policy should try te see how far they get speaking Dutch at the Brussels airport in Wallonia. I think we all know that speaking French at the Brussels airport located in Flanders is an easier experience.

[DeltaWiskey]

What a nonsense discussion. The principal language within the company is English, just like it is the most aviation companies. As required by law, labour agreements / contracts are made up in Dutch, French, English, German, etc. Most of the employees speak the 3 main languages quite fluently. As you would expect, there are departments where the majority of the employees are native Dutch or native French speaking, this then becomes the main spoken conversation language. Written (internal) communication is done in English 95% of the time.

[RoMax]

What a nonsense discussion. The principal language within the company is English, just like it is the most aviation companies. As required by law, labour agreements / contracts are made up in Dutch, French, English, German, etc. Most of the employees speak the 3 main languages quite fluently. As you would expect, there are departments where the majority of the employees are native Dutch or native French speaking, this then becomes the main spoken conversation language. Written (internal) communication is done in English 95% of the time.

What a bullsh** discussion for something which is indeed so simple.

Internal communication, company documents, training, etc, is normally always in English (personally I don't know examples otherwise, but maybe exceptions exist). The conversational language is in general 'decided by majority', but I know plenty of examples where 1 French speaking joining in a big Dutch-native group changes the whole conversation to French without any weird comment or bad look. In particular at b.house you also have people that aren't fluid in either Dutch or French (you have quite a variety of nationalities), hence the company policy to work in English (SN is the only LHG company where English is the standard business language). There are plenty of examples where French speakers never switch to Dutch, much more than the other way around. And who cares, you speak English, French, Dutch. If you work in an international company with hundreds of international staff (in Belgium and abroad) it's damn normal you have that flexibility and always at least English as a common business language.
You think SN is a 'Dutch dominated company' and that's a shame for the Belgian national airline? (what does that even mean, 'Belgian national airline' - I saw a recent article about the German ambassador in Ghana and he named SN in a list of 'major German companies' active in the country also including the likes of Siemens, Volkswagen, etc. - do Belgians fly SN because it's their national airline - does the federal government have any shares in SN - ...) I can give you plenty of companies in the BRU airport comunity that are much more dominantly Dutch.

Of course there are departments that are more 'isolated' when it comes to languages, but that goes both ways. And besises, as a Dutch native there are plenty of shops, bars/restaurants, etc. at the airport where they simply don't understand me when I talk in Dutch. And no that doesn't make me feel like I'm being discriminated... And yes there's even SN crew that's hardly capable of having a normal conversation in Dutch (just like it's probably the case the other way around). And for the higher ranks of crew being anti-French or whatever, please give me a break... If there's one reason why the level of French is going down in the crew community, it's because the available candidates are dominantly Dutch speaking with a detoriating level of French (but what choice do you have, if suitable candidates with sufficient knowledge of all 3 languages are increasingly difficult to find). But besides English, French is by far the most used language in the pax community of SN, so to say the company is anti-French is just crazy.
I'll write it down every every time I face French native speakers that can't answer me in Dutch, with SN or other so called 'national companies' active in the Brussels region. Rest assured it'll be a long long list.

The only exception to all this is when it comes to legal/HR matters - and indeed in this situation it's the location of employment (b.house, Brussels Airport terminal, Technics South zone, etc.) that matters and they are on Flemish soil. SN is following the law. Yes some companies make exceptions on that, but nothing forces them to do so (unless union power through their Flemish counterparts...).