Should the captain apologise to passengers for bone jarring landing
 

I was a passenger in a bone jarring landing in a 737. There were expressions of alarm from the passengers at the impact. As an experienced airline pilot on type I could only guess that whoever did the landing seriously stuffed up for whatever reason. As the first officer had made a couple of PA's before the approach it suggested he may have been PF. There were mutterings from a couple of passengers saying they will never fly with that airline again. I must admit I understood their sentiments.

Some would argue it would have demonstrated good manners and diplomacy by the captain if he had made an apology on the PA for the landing with even a confected rather than a true explanation what caused the heavy landing?. Or should he have ignored the obvious concerns of the passengers and cabin crew and said nothing (which he did, anyway). A touch of humility or even humour would have been appreciated and maybe the incident laughed off by some passengers as a one/off event.

Once had a FO apologise for a hard landing: "Hope it hasn't spoilt your day as it has mine."

So, are you not well placed to answer your own question?

Didn't a BA captain once do that and the FO put on the captain's jacket and went to say goodbye to the passengers.

A cabin manager viewpoint here....... no he shouldn't. As crew we occasionally take the mick out of landings but we are taking the mick out of our own.
One of my bug bares is how passengers 'gush' over the pilots (often ignoring the hard working cabin crew who have catered to their every whim for the last X amount of hours) saying how good the landing was etc. At the end of the day, Joe Bloggs doesn't really know what a good/skilled landing is. The same goes for a 'bad landing'. They may not know the circumstances surrounding that landing.... blah blah blah.

Of course you should apologise
 

It's about respect towards those paying your wages. As to firm landings on short wet runways with ability it's not a problem to get a smooth touchdown and the aquaplanning thingy is a myth propagated by the ignorant in BEA in the 70s which was continued into BA.

Wow! In your own words, an excellent flight with excellent service from the cabin crew, then the "pilots" - apparently both of them - ruined your day by maybe taking a last minute instruction from ATC to take the next exit and "expedite", and complying with that possible instruction, all for your safety? And you might have felt a small increased pressure from that lapstrap that you still had fastened. Maybe better not to fasten your belt next time, 'cos you'd never want any discomfort from that ruining your day in a serious emergency, would you?

You've come on here to gripe about some braking which undoubtedly was done for safety and not just for the fun of doing it to ruin your day. It doesn't take much to upset you! Truly awful. I hope you have recovered from what must have been a terrifying and shocking experience. The acceleration on take off can sometimes be a bit severe too, especially on those shorter runways, so maybe complain to the pilots (both of them, remember - jointly and severally guilty of such gross misconduct) about that as well. Everything just for your ultimate comfort, b0II0(&$ to everyone else's safety. Heaven forbid they ever dared an emergency descent after an explosive decompression. "Take it down real slow, we'd never want any complaints from binzer back there, would we". Let everyone pass out with hypoxia rather than upset old 'whinger binzer'!

Might I respectfully suggest only travelling by foot from now on, as cars, even trains sometimes have to brake more sharply than the driver might wish, purely for the safety of their passengers and themselves. Oh, what a rotten world, with cars and trains and planes with brakes, and the drivers / pilots sometimes having to use them.

Might you have over-indulged from the generosity of the cabin crew and this was the real cause of your belly-ache?

Just askin'!

The Swiss braking technique is an unfortunate mindset
 

Which existed in the 70s and had something to do with reduce brake pad wear..hit them hard.
Was the main reason for the Athens fatal crash but the captain was a senior officer in the military and the copilot ex luftwaffe starfighters and hence easier to blame.
Nearly ran off the end of an icy Gothenburg with a similar ****...needed boroscope checks afterwards.

No, pilots should not say sorry for a bang down landing -
as the CC usually get on the PA and says Ladies and gentlemen as you may have noticed we have just arrived at XXX
cue -nervous giggles all round

But,
I HAVE flown a lot recently with different airlines mostly legacy, and have noticed a sharp increase in very harsh braking on landing to make a quick turn off - pax and bags and everything else thrown forward and quite disconcerting for many pax -
IMO this is not really a safe normalised procedure of the day as mentioned by someone above - it smacks of saturation of our air space and of 'rushing' as another plane is right up this one's back side and needs to land too so get off the runway PDQ - is that safe ? - not in my opinion but it is pretty standard at almost any busy airport

'overcrowding and rushing' often only leads to one thing as we know

Uk train drivers are trained and monitored not to use harsh braking especially on express services with catering and/or sleeper services - they get told off if they upset the pax -

If i heard pax complain, I would tell them that is was a safe and successful landing.
Some airlines check the "G" loading on every landing and meet out fines if it was too high. This has caused several crashes. The last one I read about the passengers were cheering and clapping for the "Smooth" landing...and then the plane went off the end, crashed, burst into flames, and killed half the pax. But it was a "Greaser!"

NEVER apologise for ANYTHING in public transport ops.

Seriously, just don't do it.

It can be used as an admission of culpability by some bull**** compensation claim.

In my aircraft (not an airline) pax are strapped in and their "bags" are in the baggage compartment. Everything elsE is stowed for T/O and Landing. I suspect that this is the case in airlines too and especially in legacy carriers. If not, than there is some blame on the CC or the pax justified, NOT the pilots.

Train drivers braking vs. pilot braking ? REALLY ? What about the emergency brake in trains, cushioned off as well ? As in "not to upset me" ?

I am puzzled by your reply - we are discussing here about 'normal' procedures -
train drivers do not use emergency braking except well erm in an emergency and they often have 2 or even 3 types of brake to use depending on the kit they are driving

Re flying I was merely pointing out in the increase of harsh barking used on landing seemingly to enable quick exits off runways - if you read my post correctly you will get my point

of course pax are strapped in but being chucked forward restrained by their belts decelerating from 150mph to 40mph in a couple of seconds is not nice for the pax just so matey has to clear the runway as someone is up his behind

Anyone else apart from those at the sharp end, who think they can do better, would be welcome to try!