Mispronounced Airline Names: ANA, Etihad, EVA, ITA, JAL, Qatar, Etc.

Early last year, I wrote about how I realized I was mispronouncing the name of ITA Airways. That started a fascinating discussion in the comments section, which made me realize that there are quite a few airlines where people are confused with pronunciation.

Often this confusion comes down to acronyms vs. initialisms, with the former being abbreviations that are pronounced as words, and the latter being abbreviations that are pronounced as letters. So with that in mind, I figured it would be fun to cover some of the airline names that people struggle most with.

Let me emphasize that I have no claims of being a language expert. For that matter, there’s often more than one acceptable way to pronounce the name of an airline, and it also depends on whether you’re speaking in English, or in the carrier’s native language. But this is intended to be a general and basic guide based on how carriers choose to market themselves.

With that in mind, let’s cover some of the airlines that tend to cause the most confusion…

ANA is pronounced “A-N-A”

Japanese Star Alliance carrier All Nippon Airways has the abbreviation “ANA,” and that’s generally sounded out letter by letter. So you’d call it “A-N-A, and not “anna.”

Etihad Airwys is pronounced “eti-had”

Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways’ name shouldn’t be hard to pronounce, in my opinion, but I do frequently hear people mispronounce it. It’s pronounced as two syllables, exactly as it looks, “eti-had.” I frequently hear people pronounce it as if there’s an “h” behind the “t” — “eth-ee-had,” and I also sometimes hear people start the name with an “i” sound, like “it-tee-had.”

EVA Airways is pronounced “E-V-A”

Taiwanese Star Alliance carrier EVA Air is supposed to be pronounced as “E-V-A Air.” Personally I think just pronouncing it as “ee-vah” sounds so much nicer, but that’s not the official pronunciation. That being said, lots of people do still refer to the airline as “ee-vah,” so odds are that people will know what you’re talking about if you pronounce it that way. For example, it’s much more common to sound out “EVA” than it is to sound out “ANA.”

ITA Airways is pronounced “ee-tah”

Italian national carrier ITA Airways is sounded out “ee-tah,” rather than reading out the letters as “I-T-A.” This is also in part because in Italian, the letter “I” is pronounced as a long “E,” while the “A” in Italian is pronounced as a short “A,” which explains why it’s pronounced this way.

JAL is pronounced “jah-l”

Japanese oneworld carrier Japan Airlines has the abbreviation “JAL,” and generally that’s sounded out as one syllable. So you’d call it “jah-l,” rather than “J-A-L.” Now, some people still do call it “J-A-L,” but that’s not the way it’s pronounced in official marketing. It’s interesting to see how ANA and JAL approach this differently.

Qatar Airways is pronounced “ka-tar”

Qatar Airways is known for being one of the world’s best airlines, but how do you pronounce its name? I suppose this comes down to whether you want to pronounce the carrier’s name in an Arabic-sounding way, or more of an English-sounding way. I’m by no means an expert on Arabic, but generally the airline officially pronounces the carrier’s name in two syllables, as “ka-tar.”

Some mild deviations from that are fine as well, like depending on where you want to put the emphasis. Something along the lines of “cutter” also isn’t the worst pronunciation, if you’re looking for something simple to remember. Just avoid the beginning of the word being along the lines of “kwah” or “kyu.”

SAS is pronounced “sass”

SkyTeam carrier Scandinavian Airlines is commonly abbreviated as SAS. In Northern Europe (at SAS hubs), you’ll generally hear people refer to the airline as “sass,” saying it all as one syllable. Outside of the region it’s common to hear people sound out the letters, “S-A-S,” but that’s not the official way it’s pronounced.

Bottom line

It can be hard for the average person to keep track of the names of airlines. While some airline names can be hard to pronounce due to the words originating in foreign languages, in other cases it’s hard to figure out whether a carrier’s abbreviated name is using acronyms or initialisms.

The above are some of the airlines I see people most struggle with, so hopefully that’s a useful rundown of how to go about pronouncing a carrier’s name, based on how they officially present themselves. Of course in many cases there are variants that are widely used, and it’s not the end of the world if you don’t get the pronunciation right.

What’s your take on pronouncing the names of these airlines? Any other airlines I’m missing that tend to cause confusion?