Pilot and Air Traffic Controller Communication in a Foreign Language
There are some 100,000 commercial flights each day in the world, which means that literally millions of interactions take place between pilots and air traffic controllers, very often in a foreign language since English is the international language of civil aviation. This entails a special form of bilingualism as it is very domain-specific and has to be optimal at all times. How does it take place? How efficient is it? Are there breakdowns and if so, what are they due to? What still needs to be improved?
Dr. Francois Grosjean interviews Dr. Bürki-Cohen
Republished from Psychology Today magazine
ICAO Uniting Aviaton
February 2018
READ the full interview at the ICAO Uniting Aviation website