Landing at a busy airport if you don’t speak the local language can be daunting.
And at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (CLT), which welcomed 4.7 million international passengers during 2025, they’ve got an inclusive program – not just an app – that can help with that.
During Stuck at the Airport’s recent residency at CLT, we met Accessibility & Equity Specialist Alyssa Evans, who told us all about CLT’s “I Speak” program, which is designed to help non-English speaking travelers find airport staff who may speak their language.
Land at CLT, look around, and you’ll notice many airport employees, from gate agents to janitorial team members, wearing bright yellow buttons that say “I speak…” in whichever language that employee is fluent in.
“We’re an international airport and we have employees that speak multiple languages. So we thought it would be a good idea to highlight them so that their skills could be put to good use,” Evans told us.
To find multilingual airport employees willing to be part of the program, the airport sent out a questionnaire to everyone who works at the airport.
They discovered that there are staff members and volunteers who, collectively, can speak 29 different languages.
“The most common are Spanish, Arabic and French,” said Evans, “but we also have people who can speak Hindi, Portuguese, Japanese and Vietnamese.”
Evans says airport volunteers officially tasked with helping travelers often use Google translate or other phone to communicate with international passengers.
“But travelers will see employees wearing the ‘I speak’ buttons throughout the terminal and they’ll approach them for assistance.”
Here’s a list of all the languages represented – so far – in CLT’s “I Speak” program, which is our Airport Amenity of the Week.
