people started clapping just after we landed
 

I travel about 70,000 miles a year on scheduled but only recently on low cost and never on charter.

On a recent flight with a well known low cost airline I was quite amused when people started clapping just after we landed.

I couldn't decide whether it was an expression of appreciation or relief or simply well wishers accompanying one of the crew on their first flight. I had never come across it before.

It happens a lot.
"Englanders" do it a lot on charter flights to their equivalent of Mecca called Spain - if they are not too drunk to slap their hands together.
I have seen it happen in China too where pilots are advertised as "heroes".

I don't think it's an English thing, people in the Former Soviet Union have been doing it for years though in their case it's sheer relief. Things are not as bad as they were in the FSU, I've taken a few internal FSU flights over the last 6 months (up until earlier this year my employer actually forbaid such flights) and I noticed that they had things like seat belts, cabin crew and no passengers standing in aisle because of lack of seats. Flying internally in this region in the mid 1990's really was an experience.

I have been on scheduled European flights where a few people have applauded on landing but normally they are glared at by the other passengers and soon shut up.

I've only ever seen this on flights in the US, I've never seen it over here in the UK.

Ooh, only the Europeans could glare at other people expressing their enthusiam!! :) I have been on flights to Greece and Spain where the pilots have been applauded on landing, so it must be a British thing too.

I've experienced it a few times on TAP, always makes me smile.

I guess it is just a case of non-regular SLFs just happy to made it back to terra firma :D

I do it if I see my baggage arriving on the belt after flying with Iberia!!!;)

Experinced clapping, upon landing, for the first time on Alitalia Rome - Montreal in 1971. It is true it happens more on charters, but majors are not immune. AC, AF, LH Canada - Europe get it from time to time, in various degrees of enthusiasm.

I think on every flight I've taken to and from Israel, people clap.

It happens quite a lot on flights to holiday destinations and other charter flights.

I will never forget a time very early in BKKE's career as SLF, when I used to hop a friend's pilgimage charters to Lourdes for the duty free. On one occasion, an engine failed with a loud bang during the takeoff run and we came to an abrupt stop. Apart from me, the plane was full of pilgrims, who are normally very enthusiastic clappers. However, on this occasion, every single one of them were silent, furiously crossing themselves and offering up prayers of thanks!

Lots of ppl do it after arrival in Gibraltar flying GB Airways usually for the following reasons:

Flight actually on time

No low cloud and visibility good enough for approach

Pilots manage to avoid ships in the bay

Road actually closed and no stray cars - people -footballs hit during touch down

Pilots managed to stop aircraft rolling of end of runway and into water

Breaking of aircraft on landing not gut wrenching - which sometimes it is

Sandwiches actually editable - not always the case!


Nivsy:p

It happens a lot on flights to and from Africa. There was a thread that mentioned it in the African aviation section a few months back.

I've been through a few airports where I really wanted to clap when the aircraft took off!

Years ago, it always happened on the Italian flights when I worked for Monarch - Pisa, Genoa, Rome (Ciampino), Milan - when the passengers were all Italians, not British holidaymakers.

They were usually quite noisy inflight too!!!!! :)

seems to happen most of the time and on ALL the holiday destination flights.

if is for '' well we made it''... fine....

if its ''congratulations to the pilot for a landing like that ''...or''are we on the ground??''...do'nt they know we do landings like that all the time ...and we do'nt need to be clapped for it....!!!:D :D

I can imagine when they permit the use of mobile phones in flight an additional safety announcement will have to be made asking passengers to put their phones down before they clap least they slip out of their hands and poke someones eye out!
:O

What you have to remember is that most of the pax on low-cost and charter airlines are from a background that would have been doing "Wallace Arnold" coach tours a few years ago until air fares came within reach.

The clapping thing is a follow-on from the days when a cap would be passed around collecting tips for the driver!

As Tight Slot says, it is rather nice, rather polite and rather British!

On a flight some years ago, just out of the island of Mauritius (Technical fuelling stop) on a SAA B747, we had an really “bad” engine failure and the flight returned to Mauritius………….as the a/c touched down the passenger cabin erupted in applause….one drunk passenger stood up, turned around, looked at everybody and with a straight face said…..”you people applauding….you can’t swim can you”!!!

E

Have noticed it on every flight I have taken (I guess about half a dozen returns) with Eva on their LHR-BKK-TPE route.

the spanish do it alot
I have flown on lots of Low cost airlines flights to
the spanish mainland for (fag run) and every flight
the spanish pax clapped on landing

but there was one flight to italy where I felt like a pop star
I was working at STN for RYR it was the airlines first flight
to TSF when the a/c was making its way to the stand
I noticed people clapping and waving flags around the
fence area think there is a school next to the airfield