Agreed.100%.
What flights serve meals?? 
Seriously though, I agree. If airline seats weren’t meant to recline they wouldn’t make them that way. Just like if we weren’t supposed to drink and drive bars wouldn’t have parking lots. 
Pro-tip: Never park in a bar’s parking lot.
Pehaps we could learn from kayaking etiquette. What happens in a tandem kayak if the guy in front leans back? It the rules aren’t clearly established, seems like it could be a tense scenario with both people holding big sticks.
Tandem kayak? Oh, you mean a divorce boat.
Thank you for this; I’m short enough that it’s not a problem if the passenger in front reclines but I have also noticed that the lower part of the seatback does not move, and the top of the seatback only moves a few inches. Also, the position of my tray table is not affected by whether the passenger in front reclines, although if they do, there is slightly less space between the front of the tray table and the seatback pocket.
Back in the 80’s I was on a flight with like 10 people on it - plenty of empty seats. The guy in front of me decides to recline all the way. I spent the next 2 hours banging the back of his chair with my knees. When we debarked he shot me the nastiest look.
Why didn’t you just get up and take a different seat?
If a slight bump to the leg can completely incapacitate you, maybe you just weren’t long for this world :rolleyes:
Look, I do feel for tall people feeling squished in their seats. I personally don’t feel any strong need to recline, and if I do it’s never at the full amount allowed. I DO think people who recline shouldn’t throw themselves back with all the force of a raging elephant. But neither am I going to throw a shit fit because someone is using their seat the way it’s allowed to be used.
If it’s THAT uncomfortable for you to risk your legs being bumped, spring for more space. Sorry it’s come to that, but sometimes it just sucks to be you.
Probably because you could have switched to one of those many empty seats and chose to act in a very strange and aggressive manner instead.
It becomes your problem too if you’re seated directly in front of me.
You don’t need ALL of these conditions, though–that’s the point. I’m not even particularly tall, for example, but I have long legs relative to my short torso, so at 5’7" some seat configurations will impinge upon me. It doesn’t necessarily have to be urgent travel for upgrades to be unavailable, either because they are sold out, not even offered (if most of your flying is LAX to JFK or IAD, I think you may not realize what the options are like for flying into Wichita, Kansas, or Amarillo, Texas, but the rules you want to exist would apply to those flights too), or off-limits for whatever reason.
Maybe, but I’ve also been on flights where the cabin crew was on a power trip: you WILL sit in your assigned seat, even if others are available, or you are a “disruptive passenger.” Particularly post 9/11, getting labelled disruptive is not a good situation.
It is amazing the knots people are twisting themselves into so they don’t have to be considerate of other people.
Who is being inconsiderate? The person who uses the reclining function built into the seat? Or the passenger behind them who denies them the option because, knowing that they are tall, they chose not to pay for an extra space seat?
Realistically, it’s the airlines who are responsible for setting the passengers against each other.
The airplane bathrooms are also designed to be used - that still doesn’t mean you can camp out in one the whole flight. Sure, the airlines could solve this “problem” by providing each passenger with a 5 minute passcode every two hours to make everything “fair”, but sometimes people have valid reasons to need to spend 20+ minutes in there, right? Just don’t be a jerk about it.
The armrests between the seats are also designed to be used, that still doesn’t mean you can always expect to hog the whole thing. Sure, the airlines could solve the “problem” by increasing the width of the seats to give everyone their own armrest (and charging everyone more), or putting a partition between the armrest (since the partition itself is going to take up space, everyone would be left with less room overall). Or everyone could just not be a jerk about it.
Seat reclining is the same thing. The airlines could solve the “problem” by eliminating/reducing the tilt angle for everyone, or increasing the distance between rows (and charging everyone more). But sometimes its a redeye when everyone is sleeping anyway, or there’s a small child behind you, or you were simply polite about it and asked first. Again, just don’t be a jerk about it.
I just remembered that my very first mod warning was in a thread on this very topic.
Oh, c’mon. Here’s the claim:
You think for one second (assuming that this happened as described) that a flight attendant would stop a passenger from moving one seat to the left or the right of this flight with 10 people on it or even notice if it happened? And that Saint Cad decided that his or her best course of action to avoid being labeled a disruptive passenger by calmly moving one seat was to instead spend the next 2 hours banging the back of his chair with his knees?
I have no idea at all whether this did happen as described, but oh yes, I have met people who would be more than happy to come down like a load of bricks on anybody who dared to deviate from their assigned position, and with only ten people in the cabin, it’s a lot easier to keep track of who is “supposed to be” sitting where.
This was indeed supposed to be back in the '80s, when the rules were somewhat loosy-goosy, and it would be rare now for a flight to be that empty. However, today, failure to comply with the cabin crew before take-off means the plane won’t leave until you comply or are removed from the flight; failure to comply in-flight means you’ll get to meet law enforcement at the other end. Either makes a bad day a whole lot worse.
Have you never run into a power-mad petty dictator who demands absolute compliance with the rules, no matter how absurd? They’re thankfully rare, but I’ve encountered several over the years in various positions, and it’s never a pleasant experience. Sure, you can complain later, but that won’t help you in the immediate.
Here is one example: the airline claimed a couple were repeatedly trying to “self-upgrade” to better seats; the couple claimed they sat somewhere else in a half-empty cabin because a sleeping man was in their seats. They were removed from the flight. No matter who was right in that instance, their travel plans were disrupted.
We have truly entered absurd parts of this argument.
I’m quite sure that Saint Cad’s terrible behavior was not affected by the story of a Dallas couple who tried to scam a free first class upgrade thirty years later. He or she had the option to move seats from one of the many open seats on this magical 10 person flight.
There is no flight crew in the world who would have objected to this, and Saint Cad’s story makes no mention of making any attempt to remedy the situation by rational means and instead decided to kick the seat for two hours and tells this story as if he or she is the one in the right. Anybody who chooses instead of taking this rational choice and instead chooses to kick the back of a seat on an empty flight instead (and uses this as an example of the other person’s bad behavior 30 years later) has made a series of remarkably questionable decisions.
I didn’t say it was. I used this as an example of a flight crew objecting to passengers sitting in the “wrong” seats (not, apparently, first-class seats, however; it sounds like they may have grabbed premium economy seats), with adverse consequences for the passengers.
I have MET the flight crew that would and did object to passengers sitting in seats not assigned (and that was a smaller jet that only had one class, so it definitely wasn’t somebody trying to scam first-class seats). You are lucky that you have not encountered people like that.
I repeat again that I’ve no idea whether Saint Cad ran into a similar crew or was just being a jerk, but don’t try to tell me it’s an impossible story.