From 18 May, All Nippon Airlines (ANA) will introduce new Inflight Service Assistants on board its twice-daily flights from Tokyo’s Narita airport to Taipei.
Wearing a different uniform to stand out from the cabin crew, they will provide language assistance for customers and also help their cabin attendant colleagues with announcements in Chinese, thus improving communication with customers and also safety on board.
Taiwan was chosen as the first route for this new service as it has a comparatively high number of non-Japanese passengers, and is not served by Chinese speaking cabin crew. This is in contrast with mainland China, which is served by ANA’s Shanghai-based cabin attendants, who speak Chinese, and work alongside their Japanese counterparts. ANA’s European routes are served by London-based crew, who are fluent in a wide variety of languages and fly with their Japanese colleagues.
In addition to Mandarin and the local Taiwanese dialect, the Inflight Service Assistants are required to speak English.
One Inflight Service Assistant will be assigned to each Taipei flight. Korea, Thailand and Vietnam are under consideration as possible destinations for future Inflight Service Assistants.
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