I think what most airlines do for people who need two seats is to charge them for two seats ahead of time if they require certainty that they will make a particular flight; but to refund one seat if the flight turns out not to be full. That’s seems like the optimal and most ethical solution to me. Other passengers are effectively subsidizing the second seat to some degree, but we already accept that principle: a petite woman who weighs 90lb is subsidizing a large but non-obese 225lb man. But other passengers are not denied access to a flight by giving a second seat away for free when somebody else wants it. That seems like a reasonable compromise.
But the absence of first class on Southwest is just a market-driven response to what the great majority of consumers demonstrate that they want - the cheapest possible tickets, not more space and more inclusive services. So far as I’m aware, Southwest does not fly any routes where there is no competition. The airline business is cutthroat competitive on major routes, it’s an archetypal example of the free market promoting efficiency and consumers getting what they want cheaply. If consumers really wanted what they claim they want, i.e. if a significant number of people were really prepared to pay higher ticket prices for more space and more included services, airlines would meed that demand.
The aspect of air travel where government regulation might be inadequate is on minor routes where there’s little competition, and prices remain stubbornly high. There’s a good argument for regulation and perhaps even subsidy on these routes, on the same basis that we wouldn’t want USPS to stop delivering mail to remote areas of the country that are unprofitable.
For that matter, everyone just seems to take as a given that seat pitch is ever decreasing. I’m sure it’s less than what it was in the 1980s, but is there any actual data showing that average seat pitch has declined significantly over the past 20 years or so? I first started flying in 2003. At that time standard seat pitch in economy class on most airlines was 31". Today it’s still 31", apart from the really cheap airlines like Spirit and Europe’s Ryanair. SeatGuru might list pitch on some planes at some airlines as being 30-31", but that usually just indicates that one or two rows on that plane have 30" pitch, while the rest are the usual 31".
And back in 2003 many airlines were still using the older, thicker seat cushions you mentioned. And I don’t think any airline still uses the old seats that were hinged right at the bottom of the seat back and just reclined straight back. Nowadays they’re pretty much all hinged further up and your own seat bottom slides forward when you recline (That’s an “articulating seat pan” in the industry jargon). In any modern airline seat when you recline you’re giving up your own legroom rather than taking it from the person behind you.
I am going to push this over to In My Humble Opinion (IMHO).
I’m tall but not close to NBA size. The fact is, the standard seat is okay for me - until someone puts his head in my lap. People who are too wide are uncomfortable no matter what other people do.
Why pay extra because someone in front of you might be a jerk?
I must say, though, it is not as bad as it used to be.
Partially recline? 
You mean three quarters of an inch instead of the full inch and a half?
To me this totally seems like a non issue. The seats only recline in a purely nominal sense. In my experience, it’s about one degree, tops, and that simply isn’t enough to affect comfort in any way, my own or the poor sap behind me.
I never recline my seat, because it makes about as much difference as spitting in the ocean does to mean sea level. But if I did recline, and someone asked me not to, I’d oblige, even if I think they are fools for confusing the merely theoretical effect of these reclining seats with something that actually impacts them. But you’re stuck in a sardine can with them for the next few hours, so it pays to be nice, even to fools.
That said, asking permission ahead of time is going too far. As pointed out many times, the seats recline for a reason, and that reason is so that customers can recline them at their leisure. I wouldn’t ask permission any more than I’d ask permission to use the book light or adjust my personal air vent (or draw the shade if I had a window seat). Don’t be a dick if the person behind you asks you to put your seat up though. Again, it pays to be nice, especially on a long trip in a cramped cattle car.
That assumes the conclusion that somebody is being jerk by using the functions of the seat that have paid for. I don’t think the ethics are at all black-and-white here. On a long flight, those few inches of recline can make the difference between a reasonable sleep and a poor sleep with a sore neck, so the comfort aspect isn’t all one way. It’s not ethically black-and-white to me that it is them being the jerk if they are forced to forego recline and be less comfortable because they are unlucky enough to be sat in front of someone who refused to pay extra for a larger seat to accommodate their own size comfortably.
This site claims that between the early 2000s and 2017, seat pitch was reduced by four inches. It also says that Delta was planning (almost a year ago) to reduce seat recline from four to two inches. No mention of articulating seat pans though.
The site also says that reclining seats do no such thing. They simply don’t recline enough to make any difference in sleep quality.
Your “hypothetical” certainly impacted me for the 5.5 hr flight from Edmonton to Puerto Vallarta when my knees were jammed into the seat back in front of me despite trying to sit with my back fully against my seat. Asking the person to move it forward slightly resulted in getting told to pound salt. I made a point of making her life as miserable as she made mine It’s not imaginary and had I known I would have bought the Economy Plus seats. I know better now.
If you have a problem with seats that recline take it up with the airline. The person in front of you paid for a reclining seat. They should not be forced to sit awake because you’re really tall. Nor should they get grief from someone unhappy with the seat design.
In the end, you’ll come hard up against the fact that, like most standardized things, they are designed for persons a few degrees either side of ‘average’. So, yeah, it sucks to not fit in that range, everyone gets that.
Taking it out on the person in front of you is ridiculous. They didn’t do this to you, the airline did. Feel free to express your disgruntled ness with them.
But if you haven’t bothered to EVER bitch to an airline about your issue, and you bought a ticket KNOWING the seats recline, then seethe in silence.
Based on what evidence?
The fact that people want to recline, making this such a well-known problem, is surely strong evidence to the contrary. I know for myself that every inch of recline improves my quality of sleep, and for my body shape (6’2"), I’ll happily give up the loss of space from the person in front of me reclining if I can recline a similar amount. In other words, for an equal amount of space, I’d prefer it all to be in the more diagonal stretched-out configuration you get when all seats are reclined. I realize that not everyone may have a body size/shape that this works the same for, of course.
So you’re okay with pushing your seat into someone’s knees as long as you paid for it? Good to know.
At least you have a reasonable attitude to this. If every consumer thought this way, the airlines would put more Economy-Plus seats on the airplane because they know that they would sell them. But the fact is that the vast majority of passengers seem to prefer to buy the cheapest seat possible, refuse to pay extra for extra legroom, and then complain about how mean the airlines / other passengers are.
Suppose someone extremely obese needed two seats in order to be comfortable. Would you be okay with vacating the seat you paid for to accommodate them, and being seated instead for the entirety of a long flight on one of the fold-down jumpseats that the crew use (if that were legal)?
Comment:
Response: The “let them eat cake” argument only works for the more affluent. I priced the cost of flying Seattle to Chicago on Delta airlines on March 31 so I’d get “early booking” prices. Coach economy: $204. “Comfort”: $354 First class: $876. Maybe $150 more isn’t a lot of money to you, but it is to many of us, and $570 more is right out. So let’s turn that around: if you want to recline your seat, you fly first class.
Comment:
Response: Yes.
And seats used to recline more. Delta is the last holdout to restricting recline angle to 2 inches, and they’re about to change. As USA Today notes, “One or two inches can make a huge difference in comfort.”
Comment:
Response: Indeed, if it’s all about the environment, airlines should save 3 lbs. per passenger seat by ditching the recline mechanism.
Please note: Multi-quote wasn’t working for me today. Every time I tried, I got the Time Out error. My apologies for the cut-and-paste.
If the airline would make a reasonable accommodation for my handicap, as they used to do, I wouldn’t mind. I don’t even mind paying the small surcharge they now demand. But no, they sell the emergency exit seats to short people with lots of flight hours, forcing me to either fly business or sit with my knees jammed into the seat in front.
And no, your seat is not broken: the reason it won’t recline is because my legs are jammed between my seatback and your seatback. If you looked around at me, you would realize that. If you first checked behind, you wouldn’t be calling the cabin crew to do it for you, thus making less demand on the cabin crew and allowing the airline to fly cheaper.
… which, I think, is where we came in.
I don’t fly as often as I did earlier in my career, and for that, I’m grateful.
When I do fly, more often than not, I wind up on a small regional jet (often a 1-and-2 Embraer, which is very cramped-feeling). I sometimes suffer from claustrophobia, and airplanes are a particular source of that sensation for me.
When I’m flying for work, first class isn’t an option (and often doesn’t even exist on the flights I take), and the company often won’t even pay for Economy Plus, though there have been times where I’ve paid for it out of my own pocket for the extra space. When possible, I at least try to get an aisle seat. But, when I get stuck in a window seat, especially on a tiny regional jet, and then the person in front of me reclines back into my lap, taking a chunk of what little personal space I do have, there have been instances where I can feel a panic attack coming on.
I get it – airline seats aren’t comfortable, and if the airline lets you recline, you’ve paid your money for that “right.” But, OTOH, when you do so, you may be taking your tiny scoop of comfort at the expense of someone else. Or, “it’s my right to do so” doesn’t necessarily mean “it’s polite to do so.”
(And, no, I don’t recline my seat, unless the seat behind me is unoccupied.)
It took me a few seconds to find a non-stop First Class ticket at $600 on that route on that date. But First Class isn’t really the apt comparison, most airlines do offer extra legroom economy seats for a much smaller premium.
Overall, the cost of flying has halved in the past few decades (relative to what we earn). So it isn’t really a “let them eat cake” argument. It’s a “don’t be a cheapskate” argument. You could pay for seats with extra legroom, and still get a fare that’s maybe 30% (rather than 50%) cheaper than a few decades ago.
What I do think we need is regulation for much greater transparency about exactly how much extra room you’re getting when you pay for some kind of “Economy Plus” seat, rather than claims like “UP TO six inches”, which is completely meaningless.
Maybe I was flying the wrong airline back in the 2000s, but to me an economy seat on United in the 2000s, with thick seat cushions and 31" pitch, felt more cramped than the current typical configuration with thinner seat cushions and still 31" pitch on most planes.
I looked at the article the one you linked to cites, and while I haven’t dug all that deep into their methodology, at least on first glance it seems to be basing it’s conclusion on the fact that there used to be a few outliers that had a bit more pitch in a couple of rows (I remember back when Alaska Airlines flew MD-80s that was the case on those planes – there were a couple of rows with as much as 33 or 34" pitch that savvy fliers would try to snag), and now there are a few outliers with 30" in a few rows (and airlines like Spirit with 28", but I say you get what you pay for with airlines like that). In my personal experience it seems like a typical seat was 31" pitch both then and now.
False equivalency. The inconvenience of not reclining one’s seat is miniscule compared to your hypothetical situation. I see what you’re trying to say, but it kind of proves my point. If my seat reclining jams somebody’s knees, that’s an assault. All I have to do it un-recline it (not move to a jumpseat) . Crying that “I paid for it and I’m going to use it!” is idiotic if using it literally jams somebody’s knees.