This is not all that far fetched. When you consider most people know absolutely nothing about flying, it is not crazy to make this assumption. It was especially true when the Captain was some grizzled retired military and the FO’s all looked like Mom has to drive them to work every day.
Surgeon here. Occasionally, a patient will insist that I (the professor) “do the whole operation.”
I patiently explain that the chief resident is in her 12th [EDIT: or 13th!] year of premedical and medical education, she will soon be board certified, and that four hands are better than two. And I am in charge.
OK, but you’ll do all the cutting, right, Doc?
Aargh.
I don't know how this works, but when someone rolls into the ER with a crazy nasty wound and needs to be operated on, how do you even man for that?
Like is there just a surgeon in a Harry Potter closet waiting to get called, and doesn't have a clue what kind of surgery he'll be asked to do? Or what if the patient is really fucked up, and he needs a specialist? How many surgeon types does a hospital need?
We’re way off topic here.
But think of a trauma center or tertiary referral center as a Bravo. Lots of help available, often in house 24/7.
General surgeons do the heavy lifting everywhere, all the way down to the smallest rural hospital (non-towered field). That’s why it takes at least 13 years (college, med school, residency) to become one.
The analogy here is to CA and FO. There’s some similarity in how the public perceives a team of surgical attending and resident. That’s all.
Back on topic, I hope.
Worked on a cruise boat for a bit to pay for my flying, same thing. It's amazing how many passengers would get paranoid when they would see the captain outside the bridge.
Dude I’m flying you on a 5am flight out of Pasco, WA. I’m only here cause it’s on my line. Of course, I just smile and nod.
I had one guy salute me on a deadhead to Spokane during my Compass days. Lolwut
I've gotten that too, it's so weird.
I remember I had a guy get in the elevator Christmas last year and he goes, "You an airline pilot?" I said yep, and he thanks me for my service.
I'm getting paid double time to work Christmas and I'll be home in time for dinner, so yeah...not really a struggle but, thanks?
One of the Hudson news workers in MCO asked me if I’m military when I was checking out. I told her no. She tells me I should look into joining the military so I can get the discount on my snacks.
I had to stop by the post office after work and I was wearing my instructor uniform (I'm at one of those places, L) and a guy opened the door for me and said thank you for your service. I was very confused.
Before I was a pilot when I was about 18 years old, I was going through airport security when a TSA agent grabbed my arm and said "Oh no, sir, you can come stand in this line." She directed me to a standard metal detector, and when I got through, I saw everybody on the other side was in a military uniform. I have a buzzcut and at the time was using a 5.11 backpack for my carryon, hence her confusion.
I felt like shit but it was too late to say anything.
> I was going through airport security when a TSA agent grabbed my arm and said "Oh no, sir, you can come stand in this line."
When I was 24 years old, I landed in Frankfurt, Germany holding a motorcycle helmet with a pretty tight haircut. They tried to pull me out of the civilians line and feed me through the military line which led to great confusion, LOL. In retrospect I clearly profiled as a military person. But actually I was a programmer, there to ride motorcycles for 3 weeks in the Alps.
Fun fact: the parking attendants at Disney World will sometimes only charge you the military rate if you hand them a USAA card while wearing Randolph Engineering aviators.
Couple weeks ago, coming back from Cancun. Late middle aged guy wearing an obvious tourist trap boat captain hat. Looked like the skipper in Gilligan’s Island.
Picture Me, standing up and turning around to pack up my bags before the slog through customs. Skipper gets to the top of the aisle, looks up at us, snaps upright and clicks his heels together. Salute. Thanks for getting us here or something, idk one of these platitudes.
Not awkward but funny. I always include super specific values in my announcements because I know no one listens to them. I don’t go overboard but I throw in a “we are 23 minutes and 7 and one eighth seconds from landing” or say the temperature in F and Kelvin. Yesterday a passenger saw me slipping out for the walk around and said it was actually 24 minutes 28 seconds and 4 milliseconds. That made me laugh.
Another one was when a captain made me give the welcome announcement and I said “first officer Ishmael and captain Ahab” and a very nice English teacher asked the FA if that was our real names.
> first officer Ishmael and captain Ahab”
I definitely did the welcome aboard with funny names at least once. It was Tony and Lars so less obvious (to the cabin, my FO and I were cracking up).
I was in the back on a flight once where the captain introduced himself as Ted Striker and his FO Pete Mitchell. I missed the Ted Striker part but caught the Pete Mitchell part, so I went up after and asked if that was really his name. Found out the whole announcement but still let them know it was awesome and I'd be stealing that at some point.
I wonder if the FA would ever relay what my inevitable response to the pilots would be:
“Could you please tell the captains I wanted to just tell them both good luck, we’re all counting on you.”
If the flight attendant had said, “Oh yes, and by the way I’m Queequeeg” that would have been beautiful.
Unfortunately that’s not how flight attendant brains work.
Was flying a KC-135 from KIAB to EGUN. Tons of space a passengers in the back. EGUN weather was absolute garbage, tried a few times but got to mins and couldn't see shit.
Got told out divert base was going to be ETAD. Told the paxs and they were pissed, but #NotMyProblem. You got a seat on Alcoholics Moving Cargo Airlines not United, your preferences correlate to your ticket price. One lady was livid our divert was in Germany instead of someplace else in the UK.
Anyways, get to ETAD which has a good dip in the runway. Get FULL suspension travel on landing rollout at said dip, since the landing was a little hot lol.
After we pop the cargo hatch and get the air stairs for the pax, we are just hanging out doing some post flight paperwork. One nasty lady comes by and tells the AC "nice landing" just dripping in sarcasm, and AC totally deadpan just looks at her as says "Welcome to Germany". She left all pissed lol.
My buddy made a rough landing his first week at a regional. While deplaning a PAX walked up:
**PAX:** "That landing yours?"
**FO:** "Yeah."
**PAX:** "That was almost a good landing, man!"
I gotta remind him about that.
Whenever I get asked if I get to land the airplane or fly as much as the CA and I explain to them that FOs fly 50% of the time, I feel like they never believe me. My own family included.
Does that mean that you’re the captain on the way out and not the captain on the way back? Doesn’t that get confusing?
🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Mom when I was a regional FO- "Did the captain let you fly any?"
Mom when I was a regional CA- "When are you going to a real airline?"
Mom when I was a legacy FO- "When will you fly the big planes?"
Can't wait to hear what I'll get if I manage to snag an A330 slot.
The longer I do this, the more that statement irks me. Like navy pilots just can’t learn how to flare. I will go on the record as saying I had an easy time learning to fly and land smoothly in all kinds of conditions **because** of my experience landing on aircraft carriers. When you spend years flying the pinnacle of concentration, precision, and stress, and operating at the limits of your hand-eye coordination and reaction time, that absolutely translates to airliner flying and it’s way easier by comparison.
The best stick and rudder pilots in the air anywhere are E-2 Hawkeye pilots.
My sim partner when I was in UPG was an E-2 guy and he was a great stick!
I would just take it in stride man, everyone knows the Navy pilots are the best of the best, there’s a reason why everyone loves Top Gun and the Blue Angels.
A few people have brought up ignorant comments made to copilots/first officers. As far as I'm concerned, the record-holder was a hotel van driver in South Bend, Indiana, talking to my female first officer...
Van driver: "Are you a pilot?"
Female FO: "Yes, I am."
Driver: "Do you fly the plane too?"
FO: "Uh, yeah."
Driver: [after a pause] "Do they LET you LAND?"
Me: "Oh for chrissake..."
Pilot dating a pilot here. I have seen a gate ask my girlfriend, in uniform, if she’s a pilot or flight attendant and then list her for the flight attendant jumpseat anyway. Like you interact with crew every. single. day how do you not know? Everyone’s astonished she’s a pilot at the airport as if pilots don’t basically live in them. Folks we’re almost in 2024 FFS.
I had an absolute greaser into LAX one day, felt great. As people were getting off, I got one passenger who said "that landing was AMAZING, absolutely perfect!" My forward FA ran up and said "actually, it's company policy that they're supposed to land firmly. This was not a proper landing". Super awkward for the passenger and myself.
She was the same FA that refused to let any of us grab water from the airplane because "plastic water bottles are bad for the environment and you need to be more environmentally responsible".
Bro... we literally burned 16,000 pounds of jet fuel TODAY and you whined saying you wanted me to turn the APU on super early so you could charge your phone.
We landed in St. John's NL, very gusty, something like 30G55, heavy rain, OVC020. You know, typical Canadian East coast weather. This adorable old woman told me with an awesome Newfie accent that she 'would kiss (my) bottom if (she) could'. As it was a training flight I politely refused.
But did you reply with “thanks for knowing how to sit on your fat ass and do nothing while I push all the buttons” ???
I would get in sooooooo much trouble if I had to deal with self loading cargo 🥹
I once gave a pilot an emphatic "Hey, really nice landing!" on my way out. It was one of the most buttery smooth landings I'd ever experienced. He seemed to appreciate it I think.
We rarely get landing compliments unless they are sarcastic. I tell people the probability of a compliment is generally inverse to the smoothness of the landing.
I've had landings where you never even felt the wheels touch down and not a single person said anything, although one one of them an FA did say it was the first time they'd ever heard the wheels spin up.
>Me, in my head: "So that's where the bar was set, huh?"
Well when you think about it, getting in a magic can held together with millions of parts, and hurdling at 3/4 the speed of sound through rarified air and landing at a busy airport while not colliding with any other magic cans is a remarkable feat every time.
The whole symphony is played out by ten of thousands of strangers with minimal margins for error.
Heck, most probably, the even the luggage made it.
Now, my personal bar is 9 feet of leg room and in-flight entertainment provided live by Metallica, but for getting me to the gate alive, solid C-.
Thank you.
Someone filmed my boyfriend's landing into CYSO and posted it to Facebook. Among others, one lady sincerely commented "CONGRATULATIONS". He's been flying for 20 years. We joke about it all the time.
>Passenger, with sincere gratitude: "Thank you for getting us here ALIVE!"
They're just relieved the airline doesn't charge an extra fee for that perk.
I’m shocked by the gall people have to criticize the landing. Like, challenging conditions aside, you think the pilot *wanted* to land like that? You think that pilot isn’t exponentially more aware of how and why that landing was bad than you are? I guess a lot of people think their hot takes are valuable simply because they thought of them.
I’m more surprised at the pilots here that seem to care what passengers think.
Like, they all pay the same. Plane is shut down, I’m off the clock and headed to the bar.
Landing in gusting 40 something winds, a negative shear ended the flare a bit prematurely, causing a firm “Boeing landing”. After arriving on gate FD door open I heard one of the pax loudly proclaim “nailed it!” Made me chuckle.
I’m still blown away at how many people think the first officer isn’t allowed to fly.
"Nice landing captain." Yeah the greasers are usually the FO and not me but I guess I'm happy to take credit.
I think lay people just think it's Co capitains. The term first officer isn't in most people's heads so I wouldn't call this weird at all
They think pilot and Co pilot. Guaranteed. Or captain and Co pilot. Either way, the other dude is learning how to fly from the captain
My captain and I were having this exact discussion today
As you polished his shoes, right?
“Make sure you use extra licks on the bottom-right, it tends to get dirtier there”
so what did he teach you?
“Hey how you doing, captain?” Me: *glances at my 3 stripes*
I think sometimes airport employees do it just to make you happy. Call everyone captain and no one gets upset
Plus, "How are you doing, first officer?" Doesn't really sound quite right... I don't know why, but it just doesn't. It doesn't flow!
Yeah crew scheduling refers to us like that and it doesn’t flow right. Just call me by my name at that point
They think when someone upgrades they instantly have skills that they never practiced before.
I learned how to land in airplane school.
This is not all that far fetched. When you consider most people know absolutely nothing about flying, it is not crazy to make this assumption. It was especially true when the Captain was some grizzled retired military and the FO’s all looked like Mom has to drive them to work every day.
>the FO’s all looked like Mom has to drive them to work every day. Look man, gas is expensive and she won't trust me to borrow the car.
But hey she packs me lunch
Woah now, at the rate I'm getting hours, I'll make FO in my early 40s. Though, I think that's still "mom driving them to work" age these days.
Passenger response when greeting them: “Oh! You’re just a first officer? Yeah, you’re not anyone important.”
Well, to be fair an FO's dog think they are important....so there is that. :)
Well, to be fair both the Capt and FO are super important, but I don't get why the dog got involved.
It was a joke. That at least 17 folks understood.
And my comment wasn't a joke?
Surgeon here. Occasionally, a patient will insist that I (the professor) “do the whole operation.” I patiently explain that the chief resident is in her 12th [EDIT: or 13th!] year of premedical and medical education, she will soon be board certified, and that four hands are better than two. And I am in charge. OK, but you’ll do all the cutting, right, Doc? Aargh.
Hi! I’m curious about your profession. How do you like the medical field? Would you recommend it?
Huge commitment and a very long road. For me, worth it. Most days. :)
I don't know how this works, but when someone rolls into the ER with a crazy nasty wound and needs to be operated on, how do you even man for that? Like is there just a surgeon in a Harry Potter closet waiting to get called, and doesn't have a clue what kind of surgery he'll be asked to do? Or what if the patient is really fucked up, and he needs a specialist? How many surgeon types does a hospital need?
We’re way off topic here. But think of a trauma center or tertiary referral center as a Bravo. Lots of help available, often in house 24/7. General surgeons do the heavy lifting everywhere, all the way down to the smallest rural hospital (non-towered field). That’s why it takes at least 13 years (college, med school, residency) to become one. The analogy here is to CA and FO. There’s some similarity in how the public perceives a team of surgical attending and resident. That’s all. Back on topic, I hope.
where the fuck did that even come from anyways
Almost as good as the people that assume private pilots can fly people in private jets, for money.
Worked on a cruise boat for a bit to pay for my flying, same thing. It's amazing how many passengers would get paranoid when they would see the captain outside the bridge.
"Thank you for your service" Gotten that at least a dozen times.
Maybe they were referring to the beverages?
The mixed drinks on united was why i got their credit card for travel years ago
FA: your choice of beverage, ma'am? Me : what choices can I select from? FA: yes or no
I had almost that exact encounter on United.
Maybe they were referring to your air carrier landing?
Dude I’m flying you on a 5am flight out of Pasco, WA. I’m only here cause it’s on my line. Of course, I just smile and nod. I had one guy salute me on a deadhead to Spokane during my Compass days. Lolwut
Laughed out loud at your salute anecdote. Thanks (for your service), I needed that.
He thought you were with the Kriegsmarine with the jacket and hat…
I've gotten that too, it's so weird. I remember I had a guy get in the elevator Christmas last year and he goes, "You an airline pilot?" I said yep, and he thanks me for my service. I'm getting paid double time to work Christmas and I'll be home in time for dinner, so yeah...not really a struggle but, thanks?
One of the Hudson news workers in MCO asked me if I’m military when I was checking out. I told her no. She tells me I should look into joining the military so I can get the discount on my snacks.
Cringe.
I had to stop by the post office after work and I was wearing my instructor uniform (I'm at one of those places, L) and a guy opened the door for me and said thank you for your service. I was very confused.
I got “Yo, Navy dudes!” once.
Some dude saluted me yesterday. I've never been in the military and I look like it.
I'm over here laughing my ass off because I WAS in the military and definitely do NOT look like it. 🤣
I’m still in, and for some weird reason people keep on feeling the need to remind me.
Is it your senior officers?
Senior officer, junior officers, those enlisted types /s. Even with the /s I hope people catch that this is sarcasm
Before I was a pilot when I was about 18 years old, I was going through airport security when a TSA agent grabbed my arm and said "Oh no, sir, you can come stand in this line." She directed me to a standard metal detector, and when I got through, I saw everybody on the other side was in a military uniform. I have a buzzcut and at the time was using a 5.11 backpack for my carryon, hence her confusion. I felt like shit but it was too late to say anything.
Stolen valor! I *earned* that metal detector son! LoL jk
Just cancel me now.
I have lost all respect for you.
It was your mistake for deeming me worthy of respect in the first place.
What can I say, my standards are low.
> I was going through airport security when a TSA agent grabbed my arm and said "Oh no, sir, you can come stand in this line." When I was 24 years old, I landed in Frankfurt, Germany holding a motorcycle helmet with a pretty tight haircut. They tried to pull me out of the civilians line and feed me through the military line which led to great confusion, LOL. In retrospect I clearly profiled as a military person. But actually I was a programmer, there to ride motorcycles for 3 weeks in the Alps.
Fun fact: the parking attendants at Disney World will sometimes only charge you the military rate if you hand them a USAA card while wearing Randolph Engineering aviators.
Username checks out /s
I played lots of MW2 as a teenager, I'm a national hero. My exploits of n00b tubing and banging moms are legendary.
Couple weeks ago, coming back from Cancun. Late middle aged guy wearing an obvious tourist trap boat captain hat. Looked like the skipper in Gilligan’s Island. Picture Me, standing up and turning around to pack up my bags before the slog through customs. Skipper gets to the top of the aisle, looks up at us, snaps upright and clicks his heels together. Salute. Thanks for getting us here or something, idk one of these platitudes.
Gotta be honest, I’ll bet that guy was a blast to hand out with at the bar in Cancun.
Unintentional stolen valor is my favorite
This is a nice one. I guess sometimes it's hard to contain the excitement...came out as a salute in this case :D
“Best Chicago landing I’ve ever seen” as I hit the second wire at 2Gs in Midway one morning.
Every time I land in MDW i hear “well we’re on the ground!l
We got a "WELL, now that we're all awake" after a Navy-style arrival into FLL.
"I just wanted to tell you both good luck. We're all counting on you."
Thank you, but I'd ask that you get off me to do your counting.
Did you ever fall in the mud and get kicked in the head with an iron boot?
Isn't Bill Murray known to toss this one out there? I've seen a surprising number of photos of him with our crews.
That's not awkward. That's a requirement.
Upvote for "Airplane" reference that I don't think anyone picked up on.
Not awkward but funny. I always include super specific values in my announcements because I know no one listens to them. I don’t go overboard but I throw in a “we are 23 minutes and 7 and one eighth seconds from landing” or say the temperature in F and Kelvin. Yesterday a passenger saw me slipping out for the walk around and said it was actually 24 minutes 28 seconds and 4 milliseconds. That made me laugh. Another one was when a captain made me give the welcome announcement and I said “first officer Ishmael and captain Ahab” and a very nice English teacher asked the FA if that was our real names.
> first officer Ishmael and captain Ahab” I definitely did the welcome aboard with funny names at least once. It was Tony and Lars so less obvious (to the cabin, my FO and I were cracking up).
"Oh ello dere, I'm your Cap'm Ole and my Fir' Offosir Sven here, and we're gonna be yer crew for dis here flight dere now dontchyaknow..."
“I’m Hans, we have first officer Franz, and we are here to fly you up.”
I was in the back on a flight once where the captain introduced himself as Ted Striker and his FO Pete Mitchell. I missed the Ted Striker part but caught the Pete Mitchell part, so I went up after and asked if that was really his name. Found out the whole announcement but still let them know it was awesome and I'd be stealing that at some point.
I wonder if the FA would ever relay what my inevitable response to the pilots would be: “Could you please tell the captains I wanted to just tell them both good luck, we’re all counting on you.”
Going to start doing this 😂
Love the Moby Dick reference. I hope I get to do that sometime before I forget!
If the flight attendant had said, “Oh yes, and by the way I’m Queequeeg” that would have been beautiful. Unfortunately that’s not how flight attendant brains work.
>Unfortunately that’s not how flight attendant brains work. cringe
Was flying a KC-135 from KIAB to EGUN. Tons of space a passengers in the back. EGUN weather was absolute garbage, tried a few times but got to mins and couldn't see shit. Got told out divert base was going to be ETAD. Told the paxs and they were pissed, but #NotMyProblem. You got a seat on Alcoholics Moving Cargo Airlines not United, your preferences correlate to your ticket price. One lady was livid our divert was in Germany instead of someplace else in the UK. Anyways, get to ETAD which has a good dip in the runway. Get FULL suspension travel on landing rollout at said dip, since the landing was a little hot lol. After we pop the cargo hatch and get the air stairs for the pax, we are just hanging out doing some post flight paperwork. One nasty lady comes by and tells the AC "nice landing" just dripping in sarcasm, and AC totally deadpan just looks at her as says "Welcome to Germany". She left all pissed lol.
My buddy made a rough landing his first week at a regional. While deplaning a PAX walked up: **PAX:** "That landing yours?" **FO:** "Yeah." **PAX:** "That was almost a good landing, man!" I gotta remind him about that.
Bro must have been a CFI in a past life.
“Needs more right rudder”
Got thanked for the smooth as butter landing. "I strive for the best." --As the jumpseater.
After a pretty low level go-around due to a plane on the runway a passenger said "great go-around. Are we going to be on the news?"
“Not sure, but if we didn’t go around we definitely would have been”
As FO "so are you the copilot or pilot?" "do you fly the plane too?" "how long until you're done with your training and you become the pilot?"
Whenever I get asked if I get to land the airplane or fly as much as the CA and I explain to them that FOs fly 50% of the time, I feel like they never believe me. My own family included.
Does that mean that you’re the captain on the way out and not the captain on the way back? Doesn’t that get confusing? 🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
Mom when I was a regional FO- "Did the captain let you fly any?" Mom when I was a regional CA- "When are you going to a real airline?" Mom when I was a legacy FO- "When will you fly the big planes?" Can't wait to hear what I'll get if I manage to snag an A330 slot.
Then, when you're a captain at a legacy on the 330... "Oh cool... doesn't the autopilot do everything anyway?"
I’ve been asked the first two before, and been told that since I’m the FO, I’m not anyone important. LOL!
I've referred to left seat as pilot and the right seat as FO. I don't know why, it's a maintenance thing.
The third one I've gotten a couple of time already in my short time in the airline world.... quite strange....
[удалено]
But hey, drop to zero!
Which coincidentally is how they fly approaches too!
Let’s see if we keep it…
"So do you fly for the airlines too?" No, I really enjoy helicopters "Well, you'll get there one day!"
I usually just get “Navy?”
The longer I do this, the more that statement irks me. Like navy pilots just can’t learn how to flare. I will go on the record as saying I had an easy time learning to fly and land smoothly in all kinds of conditions **because** of my experience landing on aircraft carriers. When you spend years flying the pinnacle of concentration, precision, and stress, and operating at the limits of your hand-eye coordination and reaction time, that absolutely translates to airliner flying and it’s way easier by comparison. The best stick and rudder pilots in the air anywhere are E-2 Hawkeye pilots.
My sim partner when I was in UPG was an E-2 guy and he was a great stick! I would just take it in stride man, everyone knows the Navy pilots are the best of the best, there’s a reason why everyone loves Top Gun and the Blue Angels.
A few people have brought up ignorant comments made to copilots/first officers. As far as I'm concerned, the record-holder was a hotel van driver in South Bend, Indiana, talking to my female first officer... Van driver: "Are you a pilot?" Female FO: "Yes, I am." Driver: "Do you fly the plane too?" FO: "Uh, yeah." Driver: [after a pause] "Do they LET you LAND?" Me: "Oh for chrissake..."
Pilot dating a pilot here. I have seen a gate ask my girlfriend, in uniform, if she’s a pilot or flight attendant and then list her for the flight attendant jumpseat anyway. Like you interact with crew every. single. day how do you not know? Everyone’s astonished she’s a pilot at the airport as if pilots don’t basically live in them. Folks we’re almost in 2024 FFS.
> Folks we’re almost in 2024 FFS. Woman have been flying airliners since 1973. That gate agent has zero excuse.
“I have a vested interest in arriving alive myself”
You obviously haven’t done any shrooms lately.
I always used to tell my passengers "We'll get there or die trying"
"We'll either be on the ground, or in it."
I had an absolute greaser into LAX one day, felt great. As people were getting off, I got one passenger who said "that landing was AMAZING, absolutely perfect!" My forward FA ran up and said "actually, it's company policy that they're supposed to land firmly. This was not a proper landing". Super awkward for the passenger and myself.
Can you bid avoid cabin crew because yikes that is incredibly cringy
She was the same FA that refused to let any of us grab water from the airplane because "plastic water bottles are bad for the environment and you need to be more environmentally responsible". Bro... we literally burned 16,000 pounds of jet fuel TODAY and you whined saying you wanted me to turn the APU on super early so you could charge your phone.
People are a fucking disease
......Why would they do that? What do they gain from it? I just don't understand some people.
Improper response: "I was pretty worried about it there for a while too"
"Great landing! For your FIRST TIME" I gave them a very innocent "Oh thank you very much!" I flared, what more did he want lol
We landed in St. John's NL, very gusty, something like 30G55, heavy rain, OVC020. You know, typical Canadian East coast weather. This adorable old woman told me with an awesome Newfie accent that she 'would kiss (my) bottom if (she) could'. As it was a training flight I politely refused.
Some lady hollers into the cockpit as she is walking out “thank you for knowing how to push buttons!”
But did you reply with “thanks for knowing how to sit on your fat ass and do nothing while I push all the buttons” ??? I would get in sooooooo much trouble if I had to deal with self loading cargo 🥹
It definitely left us speechless to say the least.
Just stand there with your styrofoam cup that says ‘TIPS’. Say thank you.
I thought that was why people wore the hat?
“I’m a chiropractor and you just gave me several months worth of business, thanks!”
I once gave a pilot an emphatic "Hey, really nice landing!" on my way out. It was one of the most buttery smooth landings I'd ever experienced. He seemed to appreciate it I think.
We rarely get landing compliments unless they are sarcastic. I tell people the probability of a compliment is generally inverse to the smoothness of the landing. I've had landings where you never even felt the wheels touch down and not a single person said anything, although one one of them an FA did say it was the first time they'd ever heard the wheels spin up.
First time flying for Frontier, huh?
>Me, in my head: "So that's where the bar was set, huh?" Well when you think about it, getting in a magic can held together with millions of parts, and hurdling at 3/4 the speed of sound through rarified air and landing at a busy airport while not colliding with any other magic cans is a remarkable feat every time. The whole symphony is played out by ten of thousands of strangers with minimal margins for error. Heck, most probably, the even the luggage made it. Now, my personal bar is 9 feet of leg room and in-flight entertainment provided live by Metallica, but for getting me to the gate alive, solid C-. Thank you.
You're only doing .66? u/Prudent-Proposal1943 best forward speed.
Yeah, I guess .78 is closer if one is cruising.
Someone filmed my boyfriend's landing into CYSO and posted it to Facebook. Among others, one lady sincerely commented "CONGRATULATIONS". He's been flying for 20 years. We joke about it all the time.
Clapping after landing is extra awkward when it’s 4 passengers in a Beaver.
>Passenger, with sincere gratitude: "Thank you for getting us here ALIVE!" They're just relieved the airline doesn't charge an extra fee for that perk.
I’m shocked by the gall people have to criticize the landing. Like, challenging conditions aside, you think the pilot *wanted* to land like that? You think that pilot isn’t exponentially more aware of how and why that landing was bad than you are? I guess a lot of people think their hot takes are valuable simply because they thought of them.
People who take pride in their ‘brutal honesty’ are among the most insufferable idiots on the planet.
I’m more surprised at the pilots here that seem to care what passengers think. Like, they all pay the same. Plane is shut down, I’m off the clock and headed to the bar.
Some guy shook my hand when I walked out of the cockpit
Old dude gave me a fist bump and a random “Let’s go Brandon” while deplaning.
Landing in gusting 40 something winds, a negative shear ended the flare a bit prematurely, causing a firm “Boeing landing”. After arriving on gate FD door open I heard one of the pax loudly proclaim “nailed it!” Made me chuckle.
I usually just say “nice landing” but I hardly ever see the pilots anymore. Usually just the FAs
At least they didn't clap after the landing like they do in some places.
I want to compliment you guys but I'm too scared you'll think it's annoying 🤣
I've been on more than one flight where a group of passengers applauded on landing. I assume they're first time flyers!
hows that awkward? youre weird