I am just a poor amateur pilot, so have nothing to contribute on what happened in BOS, nor on procedures in various airports around the world. What I write below is simply an observation as a PAX and a question. My observation seems to match what pilots have written earlier in this thread on arrival procedures at ORD. <end of disclaimer>
I'm a fairly frequent PAX to LHR and ORD (KLM, Lufthansa, BA), and have often found the approach and landing at ORD interesting to the point that I'd not do stuff like that to passengers in my C172.
Last time was rather interesting. We circled, turned left, turned right, generally wandered arond the area for 20 minutes, probably at 3000' - 5000'. Then suddently all at once: Engines to idle, gear down, flaps all the way out, speedbrakes out, 45 degree turns initiated with ailerons to the stops, rapid deceleration, reduced G's.
The turn on final was quite steep and made at around 1500'. The final was no more than 2-3 NM, a little more than the length of the runway. Bursts of thrust being applied frequently. We landed hard and late with heavy braking.
Why am I writing all of this ?
Because I could see on many passenger's faces that they were NOT at all comfortable with this, and that's my point.
(When we departed again, as we crossed another runway on the takeoff run, there was another B747 seconds from touching down on that runway. Also rather uncomfortable.)
No, I'm not scared of flying, neither as a PIC nor as a PAX. (I've lived in HKG and flown in and out of Kai Tak)
No, I'm not saying this was unsafe in any way.
I'm just asking, why does this have to be so at ORD when other fairly large airports can bring down their traffic in an seemingly much more nice and orderly manner ?
I am assuming the brace position now and preparing to receive any replies :-)