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My question is, why not hire flight attendants who can speak Japanese and Mandarin Chinese? OH RIGHT, ANA hires flight attendants based on youth and beauty - NOT BRAINS!
TOKYO —
All Nippon Airways will begin deploying onboard interpreters to better serve passengers next Monday, starting with its Narita-Taipei flights twice a week, ANA officials said Wednesday. Six female Taiwanese interpreters in their 20s, who can speak Taiwanese, Mandarin and English, were selected from 700 candidates for the new posts. Two of them can also speak Japanese, they added.At present, only Japanese flight attendants who can speak Japanese and English serve customers aboard the Narita-Taipei flights. ANA decided to deploy an interpreter for each flight on top of those attendants because the number of Taiwanese passengers on the flights has recently increased, the officials said.Wu Yi-fan, 24, one of the six interpreters, who formerly worked as a clerk at the airline, said in Japanese she will not only translate but also try to kindly attend to passengers.On ANA flights to and from Shanghai, flight attendants who speak Mandarin currently serve passengers. The airline said it is considering having onboard interpreters serve on flights to and from mainland China and Bangkok as well in the near future.Japan Airlines has already introduced an onboard interpreter system for its flights to and from South Korea.
© 2009 Kyodo News.
