I saw (heard) the same thing on my flights to San Juan this summer, and a friend said that was typical of flights there.

My plane clapped two weeks ago after a Murphys Law trip. Glad to be there, only 5.5 hours late, glad to be on the ground in one piece.

DFW, planes on time, except ours. AA could not find a crew. Find crew, we board. Plane broke, maybe an hour to fix, they let us deplane. (Guess they learned from kidnapping all those pax the week before?) Plane scrapped, find substitute at another terminal, transfer all catering and baggage to new plane. Oops, now its snowing, must deice. Pushback and pilot sez "Well if we deice in 20 min we go. If deice takes 40 min your substitute flight crew runs out of legal time and we return to gate." Right to deice and take off. Murphys not done with us yet. Nice flight over the clouds until stuck in a holding pattern over Georgia. Not going to attempt landing in current weather, got to let that front push a little further south, the front that made those killer tornados near Orlando six hours later, there we are flying right on the edge of it. Yes the whole plane clapped when the brakes came on.

Plusses for AA. They got me home safe ^. They refused to fly a broke plane ^, they refused to fly an illegal crew ^, the pilot did not try to land in a thunderstorm. ^ These matter, late does not.

Although they did not announce it, for pax who ordered a drink the FA's did not collect any money. Yes, free drinks in Y.^ (Pay attention NW and DL, this is called Customer Service 101).:D

Sounds like good service from AA. On the other hand it's always amazing how easily people get satisfied after such a trip. Drinks would be free anyway on a flight in Europe, in the U.S .passengers call free drinks in Y a way of compensation...

Seriously, how low are pax' expectations if the outcome that generates applause consists merely of the plane landing safely?

What has to happen for them to boo?

/pbz

Clapping upon landing of UA7417 - the Messy in-flight DO after the P.S. DO after the SFO Hola! DO (the first one). Sorry, too lazy to link. :D

They *love* to clap in Russia.

I've experienced clapping a few times, but a few stand out. In high school I flew with my youth group to Israel. Lots of clapping when we landed in Tel Aviv.
And on the return flight lots of clapping to be back in America.
And a few days after Sept. 11th, I flew the first AA flight from BOS-LAX. As soon as we touched down at LAX, the entire plane erupted into cheers and non-stop clapping all the way to the gate!!!

I hear more clapping on Southwest planes than any others. :)

I reacall a lot of clapping the the late 80's on flights to the carribean. Recently, I recall clapping but only in South America. I think on southern winds. Ohhh. there was applause on AA a few times when the pilot was retiring.

Both my italy flights (JFK-VCE, FCO-ATL) ended with applause in December. I'm guessing it was the Italians on board...

Clapping on board my Air Laos flight from Luang Prabang to Vientienne a number of years ago. They handed out little white cotton wrist bands as we boarded the plane (for luck!) and said 'Good luck' as we took them. My seat was broken, seat belt didn't fasten and as the plane took off the cabin filled with a strange white mist!

We landed and I was one of the loudest clappers! :)

There is almost always clapping taking off to, and landing at, LAS. I've never heard clapping when leaving though :confused:. :p

A long time ago, while returning to SFO from Honolulu on NW, the pilot (s) made such a smooth landing, the passengers showed their appreciation by vigoriously clapping.

Flight last year to JNB on Virgin.

Richard Branson was on board and he took the mike as we landed and asked uis to thank the crew - everyone clapped

There is always clapping -- and almost all passengers join in -- whenever EL Al lands in Israel. Oddly, this is never done when it lands anywhere else.

There are usually a few people who clap when a foreign airline lands in TLV (I tend to believe they are El Al regulars who are not used to being on another airline).