Hi Georg, I like, and agree with, what you wrote, and it's nice that the Germans celebrate getting where they're going : )<BR>But I don't think we borrowed the idea from the Germans. I've been flying for many years and I've experienced applause all over!

on a flight from newark-madrid i was seated next to a young teen girl on her first ever flight. needless to say she was very nervous , almost scared -finally she settled. Upon landing and ensuing applause she asked why evryone was clapping and a man on her other side said"oh its the pilot's first flight and we're congratulating him" the young girl proceeded to faint -true story

An oldie, but goodie... the things you can uncover here from a little tiny search (&quot;LTU&quot...

Best wishes,

Rex

My DH and I travel to Puerto Rico frequently and clapping upon landing is the norm, not the exception. It is moslty a &quot;locals&quot; habit, but it seems they are always joined enthusiastically by the tourists/ visitors.

On a recent trip Madrid-Newark on Continental Airlines the pilot announced he was retiring and hence this was his last flight. His wife and children, as well as several members of his family were on the flight, all on first class (of course). Champagne was distributed to all passengers and a toast was offered by one of the flight attendants. The pilot came out of the cockpit, went around, and received warms congratulations. It was a unique moment and I was glad and honored to have been part of it.

Only twice do I remember an outbreak of applause: once when it had been a very stormy, turbulent flight and the pilot did a great job keeping us safe and steady; and once years ago when flying back from Europe and it was July 4th. The pilot made a little patriotic speech and folks clapped. It's rather a nice custom, I think, clapping.

The first time I ever heard this applause was 9/17/01 when our BA flight from Heathrow landed in Seattle. I'm sure it was from the relief that we had all landed safely!

How interesting. I had never thought about applause after touch down,but now do remember it various times. No one did do so last week returning from Boston to Springfield, MO, but we had fortunately routine perfect flights via Chicago. I wonder why people applaud in theaters when the movie is over...is it for the projectionist?
ozarksbill

Perhaps we should try it on the Tube. Mind you, in the rush hour your elbows would be poking someone's eye out..

The only time I ever encountered this was from a group of French school children returning home from a school exchange in Dublin.

As the wheels touched the tarmac in CDG they all applauded and shouted Vive La France.

LOL, rex, this is funny!
I love the remark about the Alitalia passengers kissing the ground LOL
What was LTU?
Funny, reading these old posts, the same funny people and the same crabby ones

Personally, there have been landings that I wanted to applaud and fall to the ground screaming thank you God! But mostly I sit there and quietly and try not to stampede off the plane.
I never have clapped..but I don't applaud at movies either

I took the EWR-MAD and MAD-EWR flights in August, and people did clap. This was not something I had seen before. People also clapped for the Transavia MAD-AMS flight. Perhaps it's a southern European thing.

WillTravel, I thought that you wrote Transylvania instead of Transavia and thought to myself, I would clap too LOL

LTU was... and <u>is</u> an airline, Scarlett.

See http://www.fodors.com/forums/pgMessa...p;tid=34692225

If I'd had any doubts about the pilot's ability to land the plane, I wouldn't have flown in the first place.

No clapping.

Over the years, I have only experienced applauding upon landing twice. The first was on a flight from Vegas to Flint, Michigan and it was the bumpiest landing I've ever experienced. As the plane came to a stop, everyone breathed a sigh of relief and broke out in applause.

The second was on a flight from Michigan to Tampa, Florida a week after 9/11. Shortly before take off, the captain thanked us for flying Northwest and told us to relax and enjoy our flight, as he would make sure we would arrive safely. Upon landing, the FA thanked us again for flying Northwest and said &quot;God bless America&quot;. At that moment, everyone on board broke into applause. I don't know about anyone else, but it gave me goosebumps.

I remember applauding a take off or two from some unsavory places.

When we flew Hue-Hanoi there was widespread applause when our Air Vietnam Airbus landed. I wasn't sure whether this was because we'd landed very smoothly or landed at all. As the Vietnamese passengers would have bene brought up on Tupolevs, maybe a combination of the two.

The applause did seem to come exclusively from the Vietnamese. There were quite a few French tourists on board, but they were a surly, bad-mannered lot, too busy squabbling among themselves and complaining ad nauseam about the inflight food to notice where they were. The contrast with the courteous Vietnamese couldn't have been starker.

Ozarkbill, it's not uncommon at most film theatres here in Boston that show certain films that the audience applauds to show they loved the film.

I thought it was a Russian thing... but maybe it is a European thing?

I've only seen it flying to and from Russia- and I figured it was akin to clapping for the prima ballerina in the middle of the ballet...

The thing is, I'm never sure whether people are applauding because they are relieved that we have landed (which seems to show rather a lack of confidence in the pilot) or because they're just happy to be at their destination.