I think this article says the right thing. Sometimes it is, you have to be mindful of others around you. I know that's a rare concept in the USA especially. Everyone only thinks of themselves then gets mad when that attitude is turned around on them.
As a frequent flyer, who's 6ft 220lbs, on those rare occasions I don't get a first class upgrade I try to be very mindful of others around me. Not just reclining the seat but trying to keep my arms crossed in front of me to avoid encroaching on the person next to me. Because the simple fact is shoulders are as wide or wider than many coach seats.
People who reclining their seats during food or main drink service need to be spoken with by the flight attendants. I've never seen it happen here in the US but nearly every Asian flight I've been on during the food service they'll tell you to put your seat up. After cabin service and the lights go down for resting then it's less of a problem because everyone is now reclining.
Always consider how your actions effect others, even if that other person is rude. It seems to be in fashion to hate on Christianity but this simple concept of do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a concept that transcends religion and time.
Oh well yes the concept of a queue or a line in Asia seems to be not a thing. Especially if you're standing and giving a small amount of personal space to the person in front of you. They take that as an invitation to cut in. On the other hand, typically the cultures are non-confrontational so as a person from the US I just get loud and be like what the fuck are you doing. They realize their mistake and sheepishly moved to the back.
Very much a different cultural concept because most of the time no one else will say anything they just deal with it. I think in the US if you cut in line you might get shot or at minimum start some sort of physical altercation. And people just generally know this so they don't do it.
I don't understand you, this post completely contradicts your original one.
Why make a snarky remark about how people from the US don't understand being mindful of others while at the same time commenting on how people in Asia don't seem to be mindful of others when it comes to lines, and then straight up saying that people in the US are mindful of that very same thing?
> in the US if you cut in line you might get shot or at minimum start some sort of physical altercation
Not sure if this is the reason. In Germany I don’t think you can expect to get shot or get into a fist fight, but I think people cut even less than they do in the US.
> I've never seen it happen here in the US but nearly every Asian flight I've been on during the food service they'll tell you to put your seat up.
It sounds like they are from the US, so they are actually talking about their own experiences in their own country. In that sentence didn't state that part, not sure why.
Yeah I get they're probably American but in their first experience they basically put down the US and in the same sentence imply other countries know better than us unmindful Americans, while also commenting in another post that the same Asian countries they praised have no concept of mindfulness when it comes to lines and that Americans do, and that they just go and yell in the Asian folks' faces if they dare cut in front of them in line.
Just seems like a weirdly hypocritical thing and also that they might be jumping on the "US is uncultured" bandwagon that you see on Reddit and other social media these days
Why did you keep bringing the culture war into your post? You can just say you don't like it when people recline their seats during drink service without grinding your axe like this.
Agreed. If people are getting bumped too harshly with seats, maybe the seats are the problem - FTA:
Elliott puts the blame for such incidents mostly on airlines. By effectively selling a seat space twice — to the passenger directly in front of the seat as well as the person immediately behind it — carriers have left it to passengers to duel over precious cabin space.
I don't understand why people jump so quickly to having an attitude about things like this. I can't quite delineate the category I'm talking about into which this topic falls, but it's essentially requests of the form "would you consider not..." that put people into this state of non-commensurate snide defiance. I too want to recline my seat, and sometimes do, but I understand what I'm doing. I do it slowly. Sometimes I ask them if it's OK (e.g. they're using their tray). I don't get the tendency to treat every detail of the world as a binary me vs you.
When I use my laptop on the tray, if the person in front reclines their seat quickly and I’m not paying attention, there’s a good chance they’ll crack my screen
Then why is the button there? It doesn't make sense for their to be a button that you should never press. I'm not buying it.
People say reclined seats cramp their knees. I don't understand that. I'm 6'. The pivot point of the seat back aligns directly with my kneecaps. It makes zero difference at all to my knee space when the seat in front of me reclines. Maybe I have short shins.
I've never asked for permission to recline, nor has anyone asked it of me. This seems fine.
I’m 6’7”. It makes a difference. On most flights I don’t worry about it because I arrange to be in a position where I have more room or can fold my legs under the seat (people sometimes get upset when my feet reach all the way to the kick bar under their seat for some reason), but if I’m stuck in regular economy in a middle seat, I could be inconvenienced or even injured by someone reclining roughly.
I'll just throw out that until relatively recently, a lot of airplanes still had ashtrays. Antiquated seat design doesn't imply a set of rules. "If I'm not supposed to smoke, then why's there an ashtray?"
Seat design has been largely static while people have gotten bigger, seats have gotten closer, and laptops have become a thing. On cheap European flights, they mostly have removed the buttons. I personally only ever use the button if nobody's behind me.
I’ve heard that the continued presence of ashtrays isn’t a vestigial design feature so much as an intentional holdover, so that anyone who breaks the “no smoking” rule still has a safe place to put out their cigarette.
And that's probably why they need to constantly remind all the passengers that there is no smoking in the bathroom, and please don't tamper with the smoke detectors in there, we really mean it, please ignore the emergency-use ashtrays.
It sounds like you may have not read — or overlooked — this point in the article:
> "The airlines are intentionally selling that space to the person in front of you and to you, so it's just incredibly disingenuous of the airline," he said. "I understand why they like leaning. It's more of an airline issue because they're cramming seats so close together and pitting passengers against each other.”
The button’s there so that passengers buying the ticket feel like they have additional room. And while that’s somewhat true, that passenger is taking space away from the passenger behind.
So there is this shared space, and passengers are left to fend for themselves to determine who has rights to it.
I see it but it doesn't make sense to me. If the seats are spaced at 40", (no idea if this is right) then everyone gets 40". Don't assume you're getting access to the space in front.
> The button’s there so that passengers buying the ticket feel like they have additional room. And while that’s somewhat true, that passenger is taking space away from the passenger behind.
And then the passenger behind can take that space from the person behind them, etc. I don't see the issue.
I know there are a few rows where the seats can't recline, but it's on the airline to make adjustments to accommodate that.
I’m 6’7”. My knees render your button all but meaningless on most flights, but it’s annoying when someone in front of me attempts to investigate this fact past the initial resistance.
> And then the passenger behind can take that space from the person behind them, etc. I don't see the issue.
Then why not leave them all reclined, and not have a button? The only way that everyone has equal space is if everyone agrees to keep their seat in the same position.
I think the point of this article is that the airlines are using the button as marketing, but it has only caused problems not only between customers that don’t agree in which position to use, but also for the flight attendants that have to deal with the resulting drama.
> Then why not leave them all reclined, and not have a button? The only way that everyone has equal space is if everyone agrees to keep their seat in the same position.
Some people may choose to sit up straight.
I feel like some people are over-optimizing for "every passenger must have equal space at all times."
> The button’s there so that passengers buying the ticket feel like they have additional room.
Perhaps. For me though, not reclining means feeling physically sick. The seat pushes my head forward, which in turn makes me curl forward, compressing my stomach, which makes me feel ... sick.
The worst turbulence has never given me nausea. The seat on an upright position does. Every time.
It also gives me back and shoulder pain.
Some of this can be mitigated by putting a pillow or a folded jumper behind my lower back but it's not good enough. Also, that presses my knees against the seat in front. Which gives me other kinds of pain and discomfort. And eventually makes me feel sick.
i'm 6'1 and if the person in front of me reclines their seat on an air canada or westjet 737, i literally cannot fit in a standard airline seat. it's not that i feel cramped, i have to pull my knees up and keep my feet off the floor if i don't want constant pressure on my knees from the seat in front of me.
i always try to get the aisle seat so i can keep my legs in the aisle, and only have to curl up in an awkward position when the cart comes by.
6'5 and i don't fit sitting 'however i like' regardless of reclined or not. it is a very narrow range of heights under a limited set of postures where this actually makes any difference.
but i do fit in any seat, even frontier, ryanair $50 plane seats, even on 14 hour econo flights by uncomfortably bearing a variety of postures and regular stretching breaks.
When I don't spread my legs, my knees touch the seat in front. If the person in front tries to recline, they feel resistance, they push more. No move. They slam into the seatback. It hurts me and it doesn't let them recline.
When I spread my legs to avoid the backseat in front, now this is the vicious part... Their seat can recline, but if they lift their armrest, the back of the armrest jams into my knee, with force amplified by leverage. Really painful.
Nowadays on longhaul flights I lean over and apologize ahead, sorry sir/ma'am, if you feel resistance when you recline, it's because your seat is hitting my leg, please don't use force. Some are unhappy. If so I apologize for the inconvenience but I don't control the length of my legs.
Basic courtesy would require you to check that it's safe to recline.
I was on a flight this weekend in economy. In front of me was a man over 6 ft and he could not leave his seat to go to the bathroom because the person in front of him had fully reclined. That person fully reclined because the person in front of her had fully reclined. It was physically impossible for him to contort his body out of the seat.
It's like a button that takes $5 from the person behind you. Of course you're incentivized to press it. Doubly so if your victim has the option as well (except for the poor schlubs in the last row). Maybe we should all just press it as soon as we can. Or maybe nobody should. There isn't a right answer.
The real question is why the airlines have even set up this crazy little psychology experiment. It's probably because many years ago somebody concluded that the value of making the passenger feel like they have the tiniest shred of agency is greater than the cost of unnecessary conflict between passengers. I sure do look forward to pressing that damn button though and I've never gotten in a fight on a plane, so maybe they were right.
I don’t know you have a laptop behind me. I bought a flight ticket. My seat can recline. I don’t need to ask for permission. Consequently, it’s your property and you know the trays are not designed for laptops. Ergo, the onus is on you to protect your equipment. I would suggest looking at the faulty design and then adapting your approach accordingly.
The player is playing by the rules, you gotta hate the game (the airlines) for pitting the two of you against each other instead of against the hilariously bad design
I agree with the article that it would be nice to give the person behind you a heads up. I am always worried about my laptop being broken when someone slams their seat back. At the same time it is really difficult to use my laptop then because my keyboard ends up so close to my chest.
I feel like it used to be (I'm thinking 1990s or so) the norm that basically everyone reclined starting from the first in-flight announcement, except for mealtimes. Come to think of it, didn't those announcements from the pilot often specifically invite passengers to recline?
I am curious why, and when exactly, sentiments around this apparently changed so much. Was it tighter row pitches that prompted the shift? Widespread ownership and use of laptops?
Maybe this is a case of not noticing something until you know about it, but I swear I've never heard of the danger of laptop screens being crushed by a reclining airplane seat, then it almost happened to me last week for the first time, and now I see three top comments in this thread with the same concern.
Maybe I'd feel differently if I were a frequent flyer (though I kind of doubt it because I used to be a 5-days-a-week train rider) but I feel like trying to use your laptop on a flight is for the birds anyway before this comes into play. It's just so awkward and the minute someone wants to get up it's a pain. I'd rather content myself with something I can hold in my hands or the in-flight films.
I appreciate preferring other options, but I haven't experienced your frustrations. I love getting work done on the plane. It's too close to me for sure (I've only flown coach), but not so much that I mind it in chunks of a couple hours.
The seat does not know the state of the human behind it. This is how lots of things work: Tools let you do things. That doesn't mean you never, ever have to think about how and when to use them.
Seems irrelevant if it's outright never appropriate. Tools should generally be designed to make it difficult to do things that are never or almost never desired.
Just as a side note, I hate it when people make up "etiquette" in their mind, treat it as real rules, and get mad at you for breaking it.
Unless there's good reason (very old person, person with disabilities), I'll recline after letting you know and checking if I don't crush anything on your side (a skull, laptop, or food). During lunch, the personnel will tell us to sit upright, anyway, otherwise the trays are unusable.
There is also a chain reaction element to it.
Even if originally I was sitting upright (I really prefer it this way for short 2-4 hour trips, which is most of my flights within Europe), if the person in front of me reclines, I'll recline, otherwise I'd be about 10 cm away from the other person's head, and no matter how nice his or her shampoo is, I ain't smelling it the whole flight, even if your favorite CBS travel expert says otherwise.
This is just rage-bait. It's a headline designed to elicit clicks and frustration because everyone already has an opinion and nobody is going to change their mind.
This entire article is just journalists, "etiquette experts," and transportation market analysts sharing their opinion, which is no more relevant than your opinion or that of the person sat behind you on a flight.
They might as well have quoted me: "I've flown many dozens of times, reclined every time, and not once caused any trouble."
Remember, it's not about you, or the person reclining their seat. Both of you are in the same plane and are being forced into conflict by the airline. You're on the same side, and the party to blame is the one reducing seat pitch repeatedly year after year. The only reason the recline button is still there is that it would clearly call attention to the fact that seats don't have room to recline anymore, which would shift people's attention to the actual culprits.
Well no, if you believe that airlines as an industry are simply responding to incentives in a competitive marketplace, passengers are also responsible for being so much more sensitive to ticket price than to legroom...
6'5" and i have NO problem with you reclining your seat.
yea i've had my knees hit with a seat, yea i've had my drink spill a little. this is not an assault though.. this is a minor inconvenience not worthy of discussion.
i've had worse wounds inflicted intentionally by flight attendants ramming me with their cart to prove a point instead of waking me up and asking politely. that's a very low hill to die on but still higher than this one.
Also like that they often get pretty annoyed when you accidentally kick the seat. Don't think it's a problem to recline your seat as long you don't do it during feeding time or the whole 14 hour flight (had that happen).
I can't complain much. I am the person who can't sleep on planes so will wander around the plane; talk to the staff; or have the light on the whole flight etc
What the airline industry has done is amazing. Had they fixed the seats in place so they could not move at all people would be directing their ire at the airlines for the cramped conditions. Instead, they let you recline your seat one inch and, incredibly, passengers are angry at each other rather than the airlines. It is stunning, the industry created an issue and then found a way to make passengers blame each other rather than the airline.
I don't know if there is a name for this tactic but there should be if there is not.
What the article doesn't mention, maybe because it's not a global thing yet, is that non-reclining seats have been introduced in the last year. On flights within Europe I haven't had a reclining seat in ages, no matter whether flying on an LCC or flag carrier. I don't think there was any uproar about that change.
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[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] threadAs a frequent flyer, who's 6ft 220lbs, on those rare occasions I don't get a first class upgrade I try to be very mindful of others around me. Not just reclining the seat but trying to keep my arms crossed in front of me to avoid encroaching on the person next to me. Because the simple fact is shoulders are as wide or wider than many coach seats.
People who reclining their seats during food or main drink service need to be spoken with by the flight attendants. I've never seen it happen here in the US but nearly every Asian flight I've been on during the food service they'll tell you to put your seat up. After cabin service and the lights go down for resting then it's less of a problem because everyone is now reclining.
Always consider how your actions effect others, even if that other person is rude. It seems to be in fashion to hate on Christianity but this simple concept of do unto others as you would have them do unto you is a concept that transcends religion and time.
LOL, come to Asia.
I look forward to traveling back the US because people are so considered of others compared to Asia.
But yes, I agree. The Asian airlines are really good about telling people to "put your seat up so the person behind you can eat their food".
Very much a different cultural concept because most of the time no one else will say anything they just deal with it. I think in the US if you cut in line you might get shot or at minimum start some sort of physical altercation. And people just generally know this so they don't do it.
Why make a snarky remark about how people from the US don't understand being mindful of others while at the same time commenting on how people in Asia don't seem to be mindful of others when it comes to lines, and then straight up saying that people in the US are mindful of that very same thing?
Not sure if this is the reason. In Germany I don’t think you can expect to get shot or get into a fist fight, but I think people cut even less than they do in the US.
I don't think I've ever been to a country where this isn't true, so not sure why you're singling out the US.
It sounds like they are from the US, so they are actually talking about their own experiences in their own country. In that sentence didn't state that part, not sure why.
Just seems like a weirdly hypocritical thing and also that they might be jumping on the "US is uncultured" bandwagon that you see on Reddit and other social media these days
Window seat gets a window, aisle seat has the aisle. Middle seat is screwed, so give them the arm rests
Elliott puts the blame for such incidents mostly on airlines. By effectively selling a seat space twice — to the passenger directly in front of the seat as well as the person immediately behind it — carriers have left it to passengers to duel over precious cabin space.
If they aren't paying for you to be in business you aren't that important and can put the laptop away for the flight.
People say reclined seats cramp their knees. I don't understand that. I'm 6'. The pivot point of the seat back aligns directly with my kneecaps. It makes zero difference at all to my knee space when the seat in front of me reclines. Maybe I have short shins.
I've never asked for permission to recline, nor has anyone asked it of me. This seems fine.
Seat design has been largely static while people have gotten bigger, seats have gotten closer, and laptops have become a thing. On cheap European flights, they mostly have removed the buttons. I personally only ever use the button if nobody's behind me.
> "The airlines are intentionally selling that space to the person in front of you and to you, so it's just incredibly disingenuous of the airline," he said. "I understand why they like leaning. It's more of an airline issue because they're cramming seats so close together and pitting passengers against each other.”
The button’s there so that passengers buying the ticket feel like they have additional room. And while that’s somewhat true, that passenger is taking space away from the passenger behind.
So there is this shared space, and passengers are left to fend for themselves to determine who has rights to it.
> Then why is the button there? It doesn't make sense for their to be a button that you should never press. I'm not buying it.
I'm of course cheekily quoting you back to yourself, but I'm sure you get the point:)
And then the passenger behind can take that space from the person behind them, etc. I don't see the issue.
I know there are a few rows where the seats can't recline, but it's on the airline to make adjustments to accommodate that.
Then why not leave them all reclined, and not have a button? The only way that everyone has equal space is if everyone agrees to keep their seat in the same position.
I think the point of this article is that the airlines are using the button as marketing, but it has only caused problems not only between customers that don’t agree in which position to use, but also for the flight attendants that have to deal with the resulting drama.
Some people may choose to sit up straight.
I feel like some people are over-optimizing for "every passenger must have equal space at all times."
Perhaps. For me though, not reclining means feeling physically sick. The seat pushes my head forward, which in turn makes me curl forward, compressing my stomach, which makes me feel ... sick.
The worst turbulence has never given me nausea. The seat on an upright position does. Every time.
It also gives me back and shoulder pain.
Some of this can be mitigated by putting a pillow or a folded jumper behind my lower back but it's not good enough. Also, that presses my knees against the seat in front. Which gives me other kinds of pain and discomfort. And eventually makes me feel sick.
The article answers that question. The airlines sold the space twice and shifted the problem to the passengers to fight over it.
The button gives the illusion of comfort, but without mentioning that this comfort comes at the expense of others.
i always try to get the aisle seat so i can keep my legs in the aisle, and only have to curl up in an awkward position when the cart comes by.
but i do fit in any seat, even frontier, ryanair $50 plane seats, even on 14 hour econo flights by uncomfortably bearing a variety of postures and regular stretching breaks.
that's just life.
When I don't spread my legs, my knees touch the seat in front. If the person in front tries to recline, they feel resistance, they push more. No move. They slam into the seatback. It hurts me and it doesn't let them recline.
When I spread my legs to avoid the backseat in front, now this is the vicious part... Their seat can recline, but if they lift their armrest, the back of the armrest jams into my knee, with force amplified by leverage. Really painful.
Nowadays on longhaul flights I lean over and apologize ahead, sorry sir/ma'am, if you feel resistance when you recline, it's because your seat is hitting my leg, please don't use force. Some are unhappy. If so I apologize for the inconvenience but I don't control the length of my legs.
Basic courtesy would require you to check that it's safe to recline.
I was on a flight this weekend in economy. In front of me was a man over 6 ft and he could not leave his seat to go to the bathroom because the person in front of him had fully reclined. That person fully reclined because the person in front of her had fully reclined. It was physically impossible for him to contort his body out of the seat.
It isn't on Allegiant, Norwegian and Ryanair seats. They're fixed-position; saves weight, maintenance costs and prevents arguments.
The real question is why the airlines have even set up this crazy little psychology experiment. It's probably because many years ago somebody concluded that the value of making the passenger feel like they have the tiniest shred of agency is greater than the cost of unnecessary conflict between passengers. I sure do look forward to pressing that damn button though and I've never gotten in a fight on a plane, so maybe they were right.
I don't hate it if they're actually sleeping, but otherwise it's just frustrating to be behind someone reclining.
The player is playing by the rules, you gotta hate the game (the airlines) for pitting the two of you against each other instead of against the hilariously bad design
I am curious why, and when exactly, sentiments around this apparently changed so much. Was it tighter row pitches that prompted the shift? Widespread ownership and use of laptops?
Unless there's good reason (very old person, person with disabilities), I'll recline after letting you know and checking if I don't crush anything on your side (a skull, laptop, or food). During lunch, the personnel will tell us to sit upright, anyway, otherwise the trays are unusable.
There is also a chain reaction element to it.
Even if originally I was sitting upright (I really prefer it this way for short 2-4 hour trips, which is most of my flights within Europe), if the person in front of me reclines, I'll recline, otherwise I'd be about 10 cm away from the other person's head, and no matter how nice his or her shampoo is, I ain't smelling it the whole flight, even if your favorite CBS travel expert says otherwise.
This entire article is just journalists, "etiquette experts," and transportation market analysts sharing their opinion, which is no more relevant than your opinion or that of the person sat behind you on a flight.
They might as well have quoted me: "I've flown many dozens of times, reclined every time, and not once caused any trouble."
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/airline-seat-sizes-safety-r...
yea i've had my knees hit with a seat, yea i've had my drink spill a little. this is not an assault though.. this is a minor inconvenience not worthy of discussion.
i've had worse wounds inflicted intentionally by flight attendants ramming me with their cart to prove a point instead of waking me up and asking politely. that's a very low hill to die on but still higher than this one.
I can't complain much. I am the person who can't sleep on planes so will wander around the plane; talk to the staff; or have the light on the whole flight etc
I don't know if there is a name for this tactic but there should be if there is not.
* Reclining seat: +$50
* Seat behind a seat that can’t recline: +$75
* etc
(90% joking, 10% terrified this could happen)