Reclining Seats

Reclining seats on airplanes.?

Recently on a trip to London a woman in front of me reclined her seat back. I have nothing against this. It is not her fault they pack the seats so tight, however (and there is always one floating about) when the lady by the window seat had to get out to use the bathroom princess got rude about being asked to push her seat back. Have you had similar problems?

Public Comments

1. I go by premium economy, its so much better than normal and it is a fraction of the cost of first class, so don't go by economy again!
2. Yes, I call it bald head disease. What the people don't understand is that when they recline their seat fully that the person behind them can no longer work on a laptop, sit comfortably, etc. In some configurations you can't put your tray down to eat. Worse for me was in, believe it or not, a business class seat on a 767. A guy sat in front of meand started calling his friends about how he was upgraded since they bumped him from an earlier flight. He was loud, as if everyone wanted to hear about it. Then he sat down. After take off, he fully reclined his seat. Even in business class it was terribly uncomfortable to me behind him. True story...I had to get up and use the rest room and couldn't get out of my seat. Finally flight attended came over, thanked me for not causing a scene, and re-sat me in a another seat in business (that was the only other one, I was lucky). It is amazing to me how people can be so rude. My friend has taken to deliberately getting up and down a lot, accicdentally kicking the guy in the fully reclined seat in front of him. At this point I wait until the person is sleeping, then call for stewardess to wake them and move seat up so I can get out.
3. If they don't put the seat all the way back I don't usually mind. Last April I had a terrible flight back from Chicago to Manchester (9 hours) when a girl threw herself into the seat to recline it crushing my legs. When I asked for her to slightly raise her seat so my legs weren't crushed her mother became insulting towards me and told me tough as her daughter need to sleep. I spend the rest of the flight getting up every half hour to try and get blood back to my legs.
4. This is common among low cost carrier and I hope this people will give out little consideration. You may also complain to the stewardess if things get tough.
5. It happens. I'm small enough that I've never had trouble getting out of my seat with the seat in front leaned back, but I've definitely had people be pretty rude about it. My personal pet peeve is when people lean their seats back, and then get up to go to the bathroom or whatever and leave them leaned back. Or they leave them leaned back while they're eating, even though they're leaning forward so their back isn't even against the seat back. It also bugs me when people lean their seat back just so they'll have more space. I've heard people telling the person they're traveling with that they should lean their seat back for that reason. Hello, what about MY space they're taking by doing that? I mean, leaning your seat back because you want to sleep or whatever is one thing, but just so you'll have more space when it comes at the cost of the space of the person behind you? But the weirdest experience was when I'd just gotten on the plane and was still putting my bag under the seat in front of me and getting out a few things I'd want on the flight, and the person behind me actually asked me to sit still because I was making her tray table jiggle. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the flight to London periodically slamming the back of my seat as hard as I could.
6. Yes, some people are very very selfish.