Перед посадкой пилот пожелал нам хорошего вечера и поблагодарил за спокойный полёт.

Because перед normally requires the instrumental case when it means before or in front of.

• посадка = landing
• instrumental singular: посадкой

So:

• перед посадкой = before the landing

This is a very common pattern:

• перед уроком = before the lesson
• перед встречей = before the meeting

In this sentence, перед посадкой sets the time: before landing.

Here посадка means landing in the aviation sense.

Russian посадка can mean several things depending on context, for example:

• landing of a plane
• seating/sitting down
• planting something in the ground

But with пилот and полёт, the meaning is clearly landing.

Пожелал is the perfective past form of пожелать, and it fits because the pilot did this as a single completed action.

• желать = to wish, in a more ongoing/general sense
• пожелать = to wish, as one complete act

In this sentence, the pilot made one specific wish to the passengers, so пожелал is natural.

Likewise, поблагодарил is also perfective: he thanked them as one completed action.

Нам is the dative case of мы and means to us.

With пожелать, the person who receives the wish goes in the dative:

• пожелать кому? = to wish someone
• нам = to us

So:

• пожелал нам хорошего вечера = he wished us a good evening

Compare:

• Желаю вам удачи = I wish you good luck
• Она пожелала мне здоровья = She wished me health

After пожелать, the thing being wished is usually put in the genitive case.

So:

• хороший вечер → nominative
• хорошего вечера → genitive

This pattern is extremely common in Russian:

• желаю вам хорошего дня = I wish you a good day
• желаю удачи = I wish you luck
• пожелал нам приятного вечера = he wished us a pleasant evening

To an English speaker, this can feel a bit strange at first, because English uses a direct-object pattern, but Russian often uses dative + genitive with wishes.

After благодарить / поблагодарить за, Russian uses за + accusative to mean for something.

So the pattern is:

• поблагодарить за что? = to thank for what?

Here:

• за спокойный полёт = for the calm/smooth flight

Why does спокойный полёт look unchanged?

Because полёт is masculine inanimate, and for masculine inanimate nouns, the accusative looks the same as the nominative:

• nominative: спокойный полёт
• accusative: спокойный полёт

So the form is correct even though it looks identical.

Yes, literally it means calm flight, but in English the most natural translation is often smooth flight or uneventful flight.

In Russian, спокойный can mean:

• calm
• peaceful
• quiet
• without problems or disturbance

So in this context, the pilot is thanking the passengers for a flight that was orderly and without incident.

That is the normal marker of the past tense in Russian.

Russian past tense also agrees in gender and number:

• masculine singular: -л
• feminine singular: -ла
• neuter singular: -ло
• plural: -ли

Since the subject is пилот, a singular masculine noun, the verbs are:

• пожелал
• поблагодарил

If the subject were feminine, you would get forms like:

• стюардесса пожелала
• стюардесса поблагодарила

Because пожелал and поблагодарил are two verbs sharing the same subject, пилот.

So this is one sentence with a compound predicate:

• пилот пожелал ... и поблагодарил ...

Russian does not normally put a comma before и in this kind of structure.

You would need a comma if there were separate clauses with different subjects or a more complex structure.

Yes. Russian word order is flexible, although the original version sounds very natural.

The sentence starts with Перед посадкой to set the scene first:

• Before landing, the pilot...

That is a common and natural way to organize information.

Other orders are possible, for example:

• Пилот перед посадкой пожелал нам хорошего вечера и поблагодарил за спокойный полёт.

This means basically the same thing. The difference is mainly one of emphasis and flow, not core meaning.

Yes, it sounds polite and appropriate for an announcement or public-service setting such as a flight.

Expressions like these are very common in polite Russian:

• пожелать хорошего дня
• пожелать приятного вечера
• поблагодарить за...

So the overall tone is courteous and professional: the pilot wished the passengers a good evening and thanked them for a smooth flight.

A useful way is to divide it into three chunks:

• Перед посадкой = before landing
• пилот пожелал нам хорошего вечера = the pilot wished us a good evening
• и поблагодарил за спокойный полёт = and thanked us for the smooth/calm flight

This helps you see the grammar more clearly:

1. time expression
2. first completed action
3. second completed action

That chunking also makes it easier to produce similar sentences of your own.