What is the official title of the person who makes the boarding calls at the airport?

Answer 1

Gate Agent.

Throughout most countries the individual responsible for the boarding calls is the Gate Agent. Their duties include the 'opening' of the flight for boarding, whereby seating is assigned or changed. To finalise or 'close' the flight, the Gate Agent will make the final boarding call, ensure the number of passengers checked in is commensurate with the final count of passengers or 'SOB's' (Souls on Board) checks with the count the senior flight attendant provides.

As a note: In the former Soviet Union Countries and Mainland China there was a policy for the senior Gate Agent to not make the boarding call. They were required to 'sign off' that the aircraft was ready for boarding and then forward this information to a central dispatch centre, whereby the announcement was made by them. Rather than being productive it was considered a laborious practice, but insured more jobs being provided to State run airlines and government instillations such as airports.

Such announcements can still be heard today in smaller airports in those areas. But as employees retire from their life-long positions, they're no longer being replaced, instead using the more modern and efficient policy of using the Gate Agent.

In many international locations the Gate Agent passes all announcements to a central announcement area where trained staff can transmit boarding calls in multiple languages. These job entitlements can vary greatly depending on the language and culture. In many of the Arabian Gulf countries, these announcements are made by multilingual staff whose sole responsibility is tannoy announcements for all departments.

The title, with some variation for local dialects, was Public Advisory Officer. 'crainic' - Romanian, 'диктор' - Russian, and '播音员' - Chinese.