No. If the airline puts reclining seats on their planes, then that is a feature that I have bought and paid for.
As a tall guy, I would love to use them on occasion, but I agree with Czarcasm: the fact that the seats do recline is clearly an indication that they are meant to be used in that manner.
The only reason it’s an issue is because airline seats have steadily been getting closer together, but hey, if that’s what lets me fly anywhere in the world on a couple days’ pay, I’ll put up with it.
No, airlines should not permit reclining seats that significantly intrude on the passengers behind them, who also have paid for the same service.
A good thing for airlines to allow? Probably not. I suspect a lot of people like to recline their seats. Do I wish airlines would allow them? Sorta. I already pretty much have to sit with a leg in the aisle as it is. I don’t really appreciate recliners cramping my legs even more.
I don’t get the common courtesy option. “Excuse me, do you mind if I use this device to actively prevent you from reclining your seat?” Can’t you just ask them not to recline their seat?
neh. The airlines could help things along by making the aisle seat higher for taller people. It would give more leg room front and aft.
The way to a solution is more fights between overcrowded passengers, leading to flight diversions, thus eventually forcing airlines to allow more space between rows of seats.
One passenger solves the problem of airlines giving people too little space by stealing space from another passenger? Res ipsa loquitur
My seat reclines and I’m going to use that feature unless an attendant advises me not to. If it is that big a deal to you then fly one of the carriers that don’t have reclining seats or start a campaign to let the other airlines know you would pay a premium for a non-reclining section of plane. If I’ve got to put up with the person seated next to me spilling over the armrest then you will have to put up with my seat going back 3 inches.
Of course, if you as nicely I might just reward your good manners by complying with your request. If you get the attendant to ask I will, of course, comply but I will be snarking about you the whole flight (unfortunately my manners are far from perfect).
So now the guy behind you has someone spilling over HIS arm rest AND a guy slamming a seat into his knees out of entitlement issues. I can certainly see how that makes things better for everyone.
Put seats that recline in one part of the plane, and seats that don’t recline in another part. Let passengers decide which seating they want.
There are a few airlines with seats that don’t recline (mostly low-cost ones, which makes me wonder if they are cramming the seats in even tighter though). For domestic travel, I think that makes a lot of sense: there’s no reason to need to recline your seat for a few hour flight. For overnight flights I think it’s still nice to be able to recline. Hopefully, everyone’s trying to sleep at about the same time, so you don’t have one guy trying to work on his laptop while another is reclining in front of him. In practice, well, it doesn’t always work out.
A passenger does not have the right to tamper with the functionality of the aircraft. That includes the seats.
The seats directly in front of the emergency exit row are made so they cannot recline. All other seats are fully able to do so (unless they are malfunctioning, of course). If a passenger wants to sit in a row that won’t have someone leaning back toward him/her, then it’s easy enough to choose the emergency exit row either when purchasing tickets or when boarding the plane early enough. That might require purchasing the early-boarding privilege, as well as being ready, willing, and able to serve as the rip-the-door-out guy in an emergency but if it’s important enough for you to spend money on a gadget to block someone from using his/her seat in a permitted manner, it’s important enough to reserve a bit of extra energy and spend half that much money on the early boarding privilege.
—G!
I agree that it is the airline’s fault but I do not agree with that logic. I am a little over 6 feet tall and was on COPA airlines a few months ago from Panama City, Panama to Boston, MA. I take it that COPA expects their Central American passengers to be on the short and slight side and I am not even though I am not that big at all for an American.
On this flight, I was seated in the middle seat with two other American men that I didn’t know about my size on either side. There simply wasn’t enough room for all three of us in the row without getting intimate and going through some contortionist moves which we were forced to do. I was exhausted and found my best strategy was to just put my head on my tray table for the 5 hour flight and remain perfectly still while trying to force my body to be as small as possible. That was horrible but it was functional and I eventually fell asleep.
Everything would have been fine until the woman in front of me decided to recline her seat back quickly. It caught my head in between the back of her seat, my tray table and my knees while I was asleep. It was truly terrifying because I woke up instantly, in pain with my head effectively caught in a vice lock. I screamed because it hurt badly and somehow twisted my jaw in a way that screwed up eating for a couple of weeks. I also got a cut on my forehead from one of those plastic laminated cards in the back of the seat and started bleeding all over everything.
I had to push hard on the back of the seat to free my head and I asked the woman in the best Spanish I could to put her seat back up but she refused (maybe she didn’t understand me because I don’t know the words for "Head crushed’ and ‘Bleeding’ that well but anyone should be able to react to screams of pain when they slam someone’s head in vice grips).
It could have been worse. The situation could have truly injured my nose, eyes or lots more if I was positioned a little differently. I have had my knees crushed plenty of times on other flights but that is the only time I have been stuck in a space so confirmed, it isn’t just uncomfortable, it can be injurious and there is little that you can do about it unless you are a circus midget.
In any other context, that would be both a product liability concern for the airline’s themselves as well as a potential assault charge for anyone that hurts someone behind them by using the seats as a weapon but some people can’t see that for some reason. If you take an umbrella and stab someone in the eye with it on purpose on a crowded train, everyone would expect you to get arrested for it. If you take out someone’s knees on a plane, many people see it as the perfect right of the person that did it just because they bought a ticket.
I do not buy the logic either ethically or legally. I did buy a better ticket but it got changed to the last available seat on the plane through circumstances beyond my control. That can happen to anyone. I am not sure why people think that you should have to risk pain or even injury just so someone else can move their seat back 3 inches in a space where that isn’t physically possible.
The seats don’t affect the functionality of the aircraft.
Actually, if it’s “that important” to someone, spending thirty seconds on Amazon (or wherever one buys such a device) once sounds remarkably more intelligent than choosing to spend the rest of your days racing for the few magic airplane seats.
Makes it better for me.
Pretty much says it all.
More and more airlines offer premium economy seats: pay an extra $25, $50, or $100 and you get four inches more legroom.
People should not be able to prevent someone else from reclining, no more than they should be able to put plastic dividers on armrests to make sure that others don’t get to use “my” armrest.
I so, so wish this were the case. I understand it’s not, so I put up with it, but I’m a big guy, and when someone leans back, it is really cramped, my knees are pressed against the seat, etc.
For me, this is a feature whose very use creates discomfort for someone else. Seriously, for me, every time someone reclines their seat, they are saying “@#$% the guy behind me, I could not care less,” since the guy in back of you will necessarily be unfavorably impacted–some people a little, some people a lot.
The airlines shouldn’t permit it, because the fact that they do means people feel entitled to use it. If using your earphones for the in-flight movie created a horrible shock for the guy behind you, there would still be people who would say, “I paid for it, I’m using it.” So, I blame the airlines for not dealing with the fact that so many people are inconsiderate.
I never recline, unless it’s an overnight, “we’re all trying to sleep” situation.
…All major airlines prohibit the use of the Knee Defender, says Associated Press correspondent, Scott Mayerowitz.
…It is not clear how the passenger on the United Airlines flight was able to get the Knee Defender on the flight where it’s banned.
…A flight attendant asked him to remove the device and he refused. The woman then stood up, turned around and threw a cup of water at him, the official says. That’s when United decided to land in Chicago. The two passengers were not allowed to continue to Denver.
If the woman had not thrown water at the Knee Defender user, she would not have been escorted off the plane short of her destination.
The Knee Defender user was in deep doo doo when he refused the attendants request to remove the Knee Defender.