A United flight made news a few months ago when it had to be diverted in order to kick off two passengers. Seems they got into a disagreement about reclining airline seats.
One passenger took it upon himself to install the “knee defender” on the seat in front of him. For those that haven’t heard, the knee defender is a little tool that stops the seat in front of you from reclining. Well naturally the one reclining the seat didn’t appreciate that and that’s where it began.
I really don’t understand the mentality of someone that thinks they can prohibit me from reclining in a seat that I paid money for. I have heard all the whiners that it’s rude to recline, I’m invading your space and so on. I don’t care. I paid money for this seat and I refuse to be cramped in when I can recline a get a little comfort.
You don’t like it? I don’t care. Besides what gives you the right to install some gimmick that prohibits me from operating my seat in the manner intended? Who the hell put you in charge of what passengers can and cannot do? If I wasn’t supposed to recline my seat then they would not have made it so I could.
On the other hand I woke up early and got to the airport 3 hours in advance to put up with idiots searching me and telling me my fingernail clippers are not allowed because they are a weapon. Who am I James Bond?
Give me finger nail clippers, thread and a piece of bubble gum and I can make a weapon of mass destruction. I finally get on the flight, cram my butt into the child seat and the moron in front jams his seat back smashing my knees.
With him reclining his seat I am within 6 inches of him for the next 8 hours. I spent good money for this seat and I don’t feel like sharing it with the idiot sitting in front of me. The least I can do is jam my knee into the back of the seat and hopefully keep him as uncomfortable as possible of the next few hours.
According to most reports, the Knee Defender device is banned for use on all major US Carriers, in addition Quantas and Virgin have also banned the device. All that means is if someone is caught using it they will be told to remove it. Some airlines such as Spirit and Allegiant have removed the reclining mechanisms stopping their seats from reclining at all.
Personally I blame the airlines. The cattle car mentality of stick as many people as possible into a space. The airlines are one of the only businesses that don’t give a damn about their customers and don’t have to. You either fly or not, they don’t care. There are enough people that fly that their business won’t go away.
You want to fly from Kansas City to London? You have limited choices. You go at this time on this airline or don’t go. There is no incentive to try and get market share, satisfy the customers or improve service. I can imagine an engineer planning out double decker seating to get more people per square meter in the plane. “It’s like bunk beds for airline seats. You liked bunk beds as a kid. Come on it will be fun”.
Is it any wonder people fight over reclining seats when they are inches apart?
So where do you fall in this debate? Are you a recliner or not? Have you ever got into a dispute because of it?
It’s a problem, but there are a few points of etiquette that most passengers adhere to:
Recline only once the plane has reached cruising altitude.
Put your seat back in the upright position during meals.
No sudden movements. You could injure the guy behind you.
On several low-cost airlines the seats don’t recline anymore, so the problem has been “solved” in a very uncomfortable way.
I suffer from a thoracic back pain and I must recline because sitting upright for long hours is a major discomfort for me. However, I’d politely ask the person behind me, if not, I will recline slowly and just enough to make my back slightly comfortable. I have nothing against recliners because yes, people pay for their damn seats. I have more issue with people kicking my seat or keep pulling my headrest. And if people are so fussy about recliners, they should spend extra on buying seat with more legroom. I blame the airlines too for cramping all of us to make ridiculous profit by ignoring our comforts and like you mentioned, they CAN because we don’t have any choice, either we fly or we don’t.
I am kind of like you. Bad back and bad knees so I am at a disadvantage either way.
I try and be a polite recliner, either by not reclining fully or checking to make sure the person behind me doesn’t have a laptop open. Personally that’s what really irritates me most — when I have my table down and laptop open and the person in front of me reclines and lowers my laptop screen. The darn thing is 17″ so it already takes up every little piece of space provided but when that person in front of me reclines, lowering my screen, I am forced to bring the laptop so close to me that I cannot even type, just to be able to push the screen back to a proper angle so that I can actually see. But I guess that is my own fault for traveling with a huge laptop, eh?
Well you know us Texans, everything has to be bigger.
So true 😉
I’m not sure it is your fault for bringing a large laptop. Admittedly I now travel with an 11″ Macbook Air which is much more user friendly for small spaces and travel. However I would be very reluctant to get it out when flying economy class. I took 2 economy class flights today and stuck with my iPod and kindle for company as they were easy to manage in a tight space.
I think many of us have suffered from this issue in one way or another. For me I think it is more uncomfortable for the person in the seat behind to have the space (sometimes) right in front of their nose invaded.
I agree that being able to recline your seat is nice to do and can make things more comfortable. I just can’t understand why people do it as soon as they sit down, even before the safety demonstration.
I agree with your point above that airlines are in many ways responsible for this. Making reclining seats then making them so close together. You say above that everything is bigger in Texas, well a bigger person in a seat is not going to have much space left for the person in front to recline into.
Yes, everything is bigger in Texas — from the trucks to the food — except for the seats. Then again, there are no Texas-based airlines. Maybe if there were….
I agree- The airlines should stop herding us in like cattle so there is room to recline without infringing on someone else space
I prefer sitting upright Bob but have no issues when some reclines into me. Hey, the seats have that function so folks are gonna use it!
I move mine back or if it’s one of my around the world flights I can almost always snag an empty row and sleep on the sleeps across ways.
Ryan
I never seem to get the empty row of seats.
Excellent commentary. I blame the airlines too. You should be able to recline without hindering the person behind you, but because they’ve made seat so small, you can’t do anything. They really need to get their acts together. The entire process of flying just isn’t fun anymore.
Traveling would be much more enjoyable if were not for having to fly.