When You're Stuck in a Plane Sitting on a Runway, This Is a Good Way to Get Through It

Nobody much enjoys those annoying delays inside airplanes, waiting and waiting and waiting on the runway for takeoff. The delays can be lengthy. Hours sometimes.

And forget about surviving with a smile when the cabin air conditioning turns off.

It's maddening. Frustrating. Seemingly endless.

But if you absolutely, positively must go through the dismal experience, here's one way to do so not only with a grin, but with cheers and applause.

(Credit: YouTube) 

Luckily for passengers on a flight from Beijing to Macau this week, a quartet of musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra decided to take out their instruments and offer "a musical surprise" for everybody during a three-hour tarmac delay.

A voice over a cabin loudspeaker announces that the quartet is about to perform the finale from an Antonin Dvorak composition, "American."

The collective "bravo" is well earned:

(Credit: YouTube) 

Here's the clip from the primo performance:

(H/T: NPR)