I am traveling this weekend and my first flight was from Bishkek to Almaty. The landing was a bit bumpy and we hit the tarmac twice. This mediocre piloting was rewarded by enthusiastic applause by most of the passengers.
I've never understood this. Why do passengers in many parts of the world ignore perfect landings and clap their hands enthusiastically for bumpy, horrible landings? Last time I landed in Bishkek was one of the worst landings I have ever ...experienced. We hit the runway going way too fast and bounced three times--and I felt the airplane go slightly sideways and, for one quick second, I wondered if we would end up in a bean field at the end of the runway. Of course, the passengers cheered and clapped as if Kyrgyzstan had won the soccer World Cup. "That landing was so bad we should be booing," I told the woman next to me who was applauding with the zeal one would reserve for an extraordinary performance of the London Philharmonic, but she clearly disagreed.
Why do airline passengers in some parts of the world cheer bumpy landings? It strikes me as being like applauding the dentist whose drilling was especially painful or cheering the uninspiring professor whose lecture had made one fall asleep. Are the passengers so glad they made it back to earth alive that they could not contain their enthusiasm that life continues for another day? Or maybe I am misinterpreting the applause and perhaps Central Asians are more ironic and sarcastic than I have previously realized and their clapping is actually brutal mockery of the hapless pilot? Or is the clapping simply aerobic exercise, preparation designed to limber up one's hands up so that bags can be more easily removed from the overhead bins? I simply do not know.
Maybe the answer is that there is simply something wrong with me and my concept of appreciation. Today I felt like applauding because no one cut in front of me in the check-in line at the Bishkek Airport--a shocking thing indeed. I also felt like cheering when no one elbowed their way past me in the boarding line. And the feat that most deserved a full round of applause, in my opinion, was that none of the elderly passengers, myself included, fell down the stairs at the Almaty Airport as we had to descend 25 steep steps with our luggage as we disembarked the plane.
I just hope on my next flight, to Bangkok, we land as softly as a mother putting her baby into the crib for the night, in an airplane wrapped in silence.
Maybe the answer is that there is simply something wrong with me and my concept of appreciation. Today I felt like applauding because no one cut in front of me in the check-in line at the Bishkek Airport--a shocking thing indeed. I also felt like cheering when no one elbowed their way past me in the boarding line. And the feat that most deserved a full round of applause, in my opinion, was that none of the elderly passengers, myself included, fell down the stairs at the Almaty Airport as we had to descend 25 steep steps with our luggage as we disembarked the plane.
I just hope on my next flight, to Bangkok, we land as softly as a mother putting her baby into the crib for the night, in an airplane wrapped in silence.
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