I just learned that Norway recently removed all R/T phraseology in Norwegian, meaning that all regular radio communication with ATS have to be done in English. Then of course the pilot has to have English language proficiency. There will also in the future not be guarantee that approach or enroute ATC staff even understand Norwegian, although for communication in emergencies or other exceptional circumstances there will always be some Norwegian speaking controller on duty in every ATC unit.
A rather bold move. I guess there are not many countries where this could be done without an outrage from the GA community enough to reach the legislature.
I heard that France also will do this!
Joking.
Airborne_Again wrote:
just learned that Norway recently removed all R/T phraseology in Norwegian, meaning that all regular radio communication with ATS havedo be done in English. Then of course the pilot has to have English language proficiency. There will also in the future not be guarantee that approach or enroute ATC staff even understand Norwegian, although for communication in emergencies or other exceptional circumstances there will always be some Norwegian speaking controller on duty in every ATC unit.A rather bold move. I guess there are not many countries where this could be done without an outrage from the GA community enough to reach the legislature.
So they have basically officialised the de facto situation.
Sigurd-Erik was always kind of a joke in Norway 
The Swedes used Swedish a lot, but you seldom heard any Norwegian in Norway. I have myself never learned Norwegian radio-phraseology and the R/T exam was IIRC English already back in 1995. When FCL.055 was introduced, I was forced to obtain ELP when I revalidated my (Norwegian) SEP rating.
In (German) Switzerland everyone uses English except some German pilots, even at the smallest grass airfields. In France, however, there are multiple airports which even require French radio communication (and French language proficiency), especially outside of working hours (which are sometimes till 3pm), which practically closes the airports for most European pilots. So I would call this bold move a necessity and I not only welcome it but would like to see it everywhere in Europe.
Vladimir wrote:
So I would call this bold move
It is not a bold move. It is a very pragmatic move, most probably motivated by cost-cutting. All the Norwegian airlines have been using English R/T for as long as I can remember. Private pilots the same. It did not make sense to maintain Norwegian R/T manuals since Norwegian R/T is not used anyway. It also opens up the possibility to use foreign labour (Single European Sky?) for the en-route sectors because en-route controllers will not be required to actually be able to speak and understand Norwegian provided there are people present in the ACC who do, contrary to the terminal areas and airport towers/AFIS where command of Norwegian is required.
They make an exception to the compulsory use of English for some types of flying like soaring.
Same in The Netherlands, 99% of radio communications is in English.
Basically English is used everywhere. Well, maybe not in the UK, where they use a kind of incomprehensible dialect :) Or maybe this remark belongs to this thread!
Aviathor wrote:
but you seldom heard any Norwegian in Norway
Funny you say , the one flight I did where I could hear the cabin crew / ATC interactions, they used some Norwegian (mostly to ask about icing conditions on the runway, from what I gather)
Noe wrote:
the one flight I did where I could hear the cabin crew / ATC interactions, they used some Norwegian
I doubt that cabin crew know much phraseology. And I doubt they communicate with ATC
Using English R/T does not preclude conducting non-procedural conversations in native language. Happens all the time, all over.
You are absolutely right, I meant Cockpit crew!
So it is basically just for the very standard comms?
