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The captain welcomes you aboard flight 1234.

  • Writer: Flight Attendant Phrases
    Flight Attendant Phrases
  • Mar 2, 2019
  • 1 min read

English: The captain welcomes you aboard flight 1234.

French: Le/La commandant(e) vous souhaite la bienvenue à bord du vol 1234.


The captain might start off his announcement by welcoming everyone aboard, especially when making greeting announcements before departure. This would be how you can start off your translation in this situation. French usually uses a different structure to say this. Literally “Wish the welcome”. “The captain you wishes the welcome aboard of the flight 1234”.


Souhaiter=To wish

Le commandant vous souhaite=The captain welcomes you (Notice the word order in French)

Bienvenue (f)=Welcome

Vol (m)=Flight

À bord du vol=Aboard (of the) flight

Le commandant vous souhaite la bienvenue à bord du vol 1234.


“Souhaiter la bienvenue” is the formal way to translate this. You'll find that in our Canadian French for Flight Attendants audio course, we focus more on spoken French, rather than written French here. In Module 3 of our audio course, we will teach a much simpler, all-encompassing way to start off your translations, a way that is more acceptable in spoken French, and allows you to bypass altogether the need to use “souhaiter la bienvenue” and “annonce que…”


Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.


The captain announces that…

  • Writer: Flight Attendant Phrases
    Flight Attendant Phrases
  • Feb 26, 2019
  • 2 min read

English: The captain announces that…

French: Le/La commandant(e) annonce que…


So imagine your flight is about to start its descent towards its destination airport and your captain (or first officer or in-charge) comes on the PA and makes an announcement, informing passengers of how much flight time is remaining, arrival time, time zone changes, destination weather, etc. Now you need to pick up the PA and make an announcement translating what the captain has just said. Before you do that, you should inform the passengers in French that it was the captain who was just speaking and making an announcement.


One way to do that and to start out your translations is “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain announces that…”


“Annonce’’ (f) is the word for “announcement” but in French, it’s also the verb “announces” that we’ll use in “the captain announces…”


Mesdames et messieurs=Ladies and gentlemen

Annoncer=To announce

Il/Elle annonce=He/She announces

Que=That

Mesdames et messieurs, le commandant annonce que…/Mesdames et messieurs, la commandante annonce que…=Ladies and gentlemen, the captain announces that…


This is one standard way to start off your announcements, using a word we already know: annonce. Other options that airlines may want you to use include “The captain advises you that…” "Le commandant vous avise que..." or “The captain informs us that…” "Le commandant nous informe que..."


You’ll find that in our Canadian French for Flight Attendants audio course, Module 3, we will teach a much simpler way to start off your translations, a way that’s more acceptable in spoken French, and easier to remember and use for learners.


Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.


Captain. First officer. Service director.

  • Writer: Flight Attendant Phrases
    Flight Attendant Phrases
  • Feb 22, 2019
  • 2 min read

English: Captain. First officer. Service director.

French: Commandant/Commandante. Premier officier/Première officier. Directeur de service/Directrice de service.


Before we dive right into translating announcements, we need to familiarize ourselves with the ones making the announcements that we’re translating. At the beginning of your translation, you should specify who was making the initial announcement in English. Often, it’s the captain making announcements that you need to translate. Though the first officer (the pilot who is second-in-command of the flight), and the service director (the head flight attendant on a flight with multiple flight attendants) may also be making announcements that you need to translate.


Le commandant (m)=The captain (male)

La commandante (f)=The captain (female)


You may also hear "commandant(e) de bord". Instead of ‘’commandant(e)’’, you may also hear your colleagues use “capitaine”, which in French, technically refers more to ship captains.


Le premier officier (m)=The first officer (male)

La première officier (f)=The first officer (female)

Premier, Première=First


Le directeur (m) de service=The service director (male)

La directrice (f) de service=The service director (female)


Depending on the airline, in English, a service director can also be called an “in-charge” or a “purser”. In French, you may also hear “commissaire” or “agent(e) de bord responsable”, among others.


Also, “premier officier, première officier” is somewhat difficult to pronounce for a lot of learners, we find, even though it is the formal term for “first officer” that airlines and airline French courses want you to use. In our Canadian French for Flight Attendants audio course, you’ll find that we opt for another term for “first officer” that’s far easier to pronounce for learners.


Many of our flight attendant colleagues are trying to learn French for their jobs by taking French courses provided by their airlines or by external sources. As beginners in French, one big obstacle that severely impedes their progress is that right off the bat, they’re expected to use complicated expressions, terminology, and sentence structures, because this is the “formal”, “professional” and “technical” way to say things. They get discouraged as it’s very hard to make that leap from learning French basics to speaking formal, professional, technical, perfect French. As such, you’ll find that our Canadian French for Flight Attendants audio course will teach formal expressions and sentence structures (like “premier officier”) but also provide you many simpler alternatives in the interim. We recognize that reading and writing require formal language, but spoken language is much more lenient.

Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.


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