Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

It was brought to my attention that NW is once again hiring for IND. But this time they are doing something completely different. They are looking for bilingual agents. Spanish? Dutch? Nope. Japanese. This one caught me completely off guard. Of all the languages you'd be looking for Japanese wouldn't have been high on my list. Spanish I could see because of the larger hispanic population in the area. Dutch maybe if they were going to Amsterdam. But Japanese? I've never seen them specifically look for a foreign language for Indianapolis. Only reason I can think of is maybe they are looking at IND-NRT. I know in the past Kish had mentioned he really wanted a flight to the far east. I don't remember if he wanted Japan or China. Either would be a huge victory.

Its just weird. NW has built up AMS pretty well. Maybe they are looking to do the same thing to NRT.

Site Admin

Joined: 17 Jun 2005
Posts: 949
Location: Carmel, IN

I'd be hugely skeptical at first. But then again, we do have Toyota in Southern Indiana, a Subaru plant in Lafayette, and a massive new Honda plant near Greensburg. That plus any use by Lilly and Cummins might be enough to convince them to do it. I'd still hesitate to believe that it will be anything like a daily nonstop. If it were to become reality, I'd say it's either a one-stop flight via SEA or PDX or it's a weekly or twice-weekly.

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

But isn't the hiring of Japanese speaking reps just to handle normal customer traffic a bit odd?

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

We may be on to something. The 3 job listings for customer service agents with the foreign language skills were pulled from Careerbuilder.com and Monster.com. They left the quality service agent job up but pulled the request for Japanese speaking reps. Did they get all the applicants they needed in just 4 or 5 days (note their normal listings for customer service agents were online for 3 or 4 weeks)? Or did someone in HR slip up and let the cat out of the bag with these listings?

Site Admin

Joined: 15 Jun 2005
Posts: 2316
Location: Indianapolis, IN

Here are 3 facts related to this.

Kish as his number one request wanted long haul service to the far east.
Negotiations were taking place with 2 airlines for international service.
Northwest runs CSR job listings with a Japanese language request.

Also long haul routes typically start in the early summer for high fare season. BDL-AMS was leaked around 9-20 with an official release a few weeks later. So the timing is there for this as well.

The VIP and Press open house for the airport will be Oct 10th I believe. I believe that is 2 years to the date of the BDL-AMS announcement. It might be plus or minus one day.

Speculate away!

Member

Joined: 28 Apr 2008
Posts: 157
Location:

This is gonna get interesting....