Submitted by toniher on
I usually check worldwide news related to Catalan language, and a few days ago I noticed many digital media informed about FC Barcelona refusal to use Air Berlin during its tour in the USA. Some poorly informed media reported that was because it does not use Catalan language in its communications. Sadly, Air Berlin would not be the only company which ignores Catalan speakers in their own territory; but this is not actually the primary reason of all this buzz but a leading article in company's magazine against Catalan culture signed by the German airline company's CEO. As a response, many offended Catalan speakers cried out to stop flying with them.
So you can understand what is going on here, we should take into account that the person in charge of the company in Spain and Portugal, Álvaro Middelmann, is a militant of PP, a right-wing Spanish nationalist party, which has usually lead several policies against Catalan language normalization. Some years ago, that party was in Balearic Islands government and Air Berlin is said to have greatly benefited from that political situation.
But that's not the first and only case of Joachim Hunold, Air Berlin's CEO, demonstration of poor manners and sensibility; for instance, regarding to environmental issues, he was 2007 winner of a so-named Dinousaur's award.
In conclusion, so why some of these data I commented above were not introduced to readers of international media in order they could understand a bit more the polemics? Because the correspondents simply "copy-paste" in an automatic fashion the news from Spanish (essentially those based on Madrid) media, which tend to have a negative bias against Catalan language and even often join and promote reactionary campaigns against its usage.
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