Originally Posted by
skierpony
Its been a question I've had for awhile, but just never bothered to ask on here. So after my last couple days on a DEL/BOM/COK/IXE/BOM/DEL route with meetings along the way, I wondered why Indian airlines feel the need to land so fast? I'm not sure if there is a pilot that can explain this technically or if it is just the style of Indian airlines and how pilots are trained, but I just don't understand why all the flights hit the ground going so fast! Any wisdom?
I've always wondered this, and my wild guess was that it feels "hard" due to the type of concrete the runways are built with in India... but some other responses in this thread make more sense. Especially at BOM maybe a smooth landing would result in more taxi time as domestic and int'l flights seem to use the same runways (for e.g. a smooth landing for an int'l flight would bring it to the domestic part of the airport, resulting in a longer taxi to its int'l arrival gate?), or vice-versa. Makes sense but who knows. Glad you asked the question as I always thought it was just me.
On a similar note: (especially at BOM) I've felt that the runways are kinda bumpy.. more bumpy than I've experienced at airports outside of India. I've felt this for both take-off and landing (admittedly more while taking off, weirdly enough.) Is this my mind working overtime again?