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Bilingual air tickets

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-12 08:52

Flying can be as easy as buying a ticket and boarding the airplane. So easy that these days you do not even have to have a real ticket to get onboard.

But let us go back to a rather rudimentary question - can you fully understand what is on that small piece of paper?

We are not sure about native English speakers but are certain few Chinese can understand everything on it. The reason is simple: English is the official language on all air tickets sold here, and the majority of our compatriots do not speak a word of it. And even if one is fully conversant with the language, it may take some effort to figure out what all those abbreviations stand for. Although some flight operators do provide basic Chinese translation for essential information on their tickets, it is far from common practice.

This seldom causes trouble because, most of the time, we fly from one place to another, or at most one more place, and know the necessary details like time and place. But some do have trouble simply because they cannot read what is printed on the tickets.

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It does not matter much why air tickets sold in China are in a foreign language. Airlines may give many reasons such as international and industry practices. But the suggestion of consumer rights organizations in 17 cities, including Hong Kong, Beijing and Chongqing, to print full Chinese translation on air tickets merits consideration.

In the first place, as the associations pointed out in their appeal to the Ministry of Transport, the Civil Aviation Administration of China, airlines and ticket agencies, air tickets are a form of passenger transport contract. As a party to the contract, the passenger is entitled to full knowledge about the document. The all-English, or mostly-English, tickets mean not only inconvenience, they ignore the customer's right to know, too. And without some of the information printed on the tickets, some passengers are likely to suffer loss.

The country's Contract Law and the law on consumer rights protection share explicit stipulations on the duty of disclosure. That duty applies to all businesses operating in our country. Airlines are no exception.

Making air tickets bilingual, if a foreign language is indeed necessary on all of them, would do tremendous good even at some additional cost.

(China Daily 11/12/2009 page8)