BA landing at MRS

[markandrewha]

Flew into Marseille on BA yesterday morning (from the East, ie towards the water!) and was surprised at how far down the runway we touched down. It must have been halfway down and we had to whack on brakes and reverse thrust pretty hard before vacating at the very end of the runway.

I have flown into MRS many times (with both BA and EZY, plus the defunct Buzz) but have never experienced such a long landing there. I was wondering whether this would have been deliberate or just a miscalculation. It was a cloudy approach although finals were clear and the wind appeared no worse than other landings, although I'm no expert.

Just an interested observation.

[Hartington]

Many years ago I had the privilege of riding the cockpit into Belfast (Aldergrove). On finals the co-pilot turned to me and said "we are now going to show you a short landing in a 737". "OK", I thought.

We touched down very early and every arresting device on the airframe went into operation resulting in a very quick stop. As we taxied in I had to ask "why?". The answer I got was "There are 3 exits from the runway; 1 each end and one in the middle. We're 5 minutes late and by using the exit in the middle I can make up some of that time".

I don't know the layout of Marseilles but could a similar explanation apply?

[Doors to Automatic]

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0591001/M/

There is a fairly hefty displaced threshold going towards the sea. A landing around the half-way point would therefore still be inside the touchdown zone (just!). However vacating at the end would increase the taxi time so I'm not sure why the pilots would not want to get the plane down early.