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On recent American Airlines flights (within maybe past two years), their in-flight entertainment system has different languages you can choose. There are the common, expected, ones: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. However they also have "Kreyól ayisyen" aka Haitian Creole.

How come they included a relatively uncommon language, Creole? I've noticed this on various domestic and international flights, so it's not tailored per flight. I find it interesting, since they don't have other major languages like German, Russian, or even Chinese or Japanese.

What's the reason to include Creole? Is there a connection (no pun intended) between the airlines and the language specifically?

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    AA's network may well carry more Creole speakers who do not speak another international language than monolingual German or Japanese speakers. On a flight to NRT, though, you'll likely have Japanese as an option. What were your routes?
    – choster
    Commented Apr 29, 2018 at 0:53
  • @choster most recent was OGG to LAX, but I've seen it on most flights I can recall recently with the in flight systems (same exact languages). Good point about the Creole speakers not knowing another major international language ...but then I would expect some other relatively uncommon languages as a choice, no?
    – BruceWayne
    Commented Apr 29, 2018 at 6:29

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American Airlines, interestingly, is the airline with the most flights in and out of Haiti (e.g. see the PAP departures/arrivals board). It only makes sense that for these flights, Haitian Creole would be a language option.

In addition, Haitian Creole is widely spoken in the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, Cuba, and many major cities in the east coast of the US, especially in Florida.

Given all that, it does make some sense that AA might offer Haitian Creole as a language option on at least some of its flights.

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    And when they have it for some flights, it will be relatively cheap to offer it on all flights, have it build in all planes of the fleet.
    – Willeke ♦
    Commented Apr 29, 2018 at 8:08
  • You're right. If the in-flight entertainment system is standardized across the fleet, then all planes carrying that entertainment system will have that language option.
    – Michael Hampton
    Commented Apr 29, 2018 at 14:21

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