Why would you go to such a restaurant in the first place?
Oh, it was an analogy…another situation of “I paid for this so I’m taking it” vs. causing pain or annoyance to others.
Assuming that we’re really talking about airlines here and not restaurants, I don’t mind flying an airline that has reclining seats. I just don’t recline MINE if there’s a normal-sized human sitting behind me, because I would feel like a jerk crushing someone’s kneecaps to lean back five degrees.
If someone reclines into my kneecaps, I fully understand that they are 100% within their rights to do so. I might also think they are inconsiderate, but a large part of traveling on a plane is dealing with a number of inconsiderate people.
No, there is a difference between inadvertent, and intentional.
I blame two things for this debate.
The first is that there are people who are genuinely comfortable sitting bolt upright, and they honestly don’t understand why anyone would need something different. They perceive the added comfort of reclining to be minimal and easily cancelled out by the annoyance of being reclined in to. Others are the opposite. Neither side is wrong, exactly, but only one side is currently accommodated.
The second is the rise of laptops. This one really gets my goat. I’m sympathetic if you are six foot five and your knees are genuinely uncomfortable. I’m not at all sympathetic, however, if you expect me to be uncomfortable because you’d like to play Doom or watch Love Actually DVDs or put the finishing touches on a PowerPoint or whatever. Planes were not designed to accommodate laptops, and they often don’t. Luckily there are about 5,783 other ways to pass the time. You can’t expect to use a laptop on a flight.
Please join us in the year 2010. Once you accept laptops then you can learn about the ubiquity of tablets, bringing us right up to present day. My right to my space to use a device for my pleasure during a flight is not outranked by your right to recline your seat.
Devices notwithstanding I can’t even write on a pad of paper with the person in front of me in full recline.
Yours is a poor analogy too. Flyers who recline their seats may annoy the sensitive souls sitting behind them, but in virtually all cases such annoyance is not intended. Your suggestion of deliberate malice on the part of recliners goes a long way toward explaining your rage over this issue.
It’s not “sensitive souls.” How about tall, long-legged people whose knees are practically pressed against the seat in front of them before it is reclined? Or laptop users? Or someone who wants to have a snack on the tray table?
Why do the recliners’ wants outweigh theirs?
The solution, to me, seems obvious: carry on a small pump spray bottle filled with water. When they’ve reclined and look all nice and relaxed, make a “sneeze” noise and spray the top of their head with the spray bottle. Wait and repeat if necessary. Unless they have a weird fetish, they should leave your personal space soon.
The hard truth is that the airlines won’t change this because the anti recline crowd really just want to wine and take out their frustrations on those around them.
If they wrote to the airline, spoke up when they purchased their tickets, expressed their feelings as they checked in, then they might actually see change. The airlines are never going to take them seriously until they do.
But they don’t. They continue to buy tickets and get on planes they know have reclining seats.
The OP is fussed over a 90 minute flight! How can anyone take them seriously? The airlines don’t for good reason. Have you been on a plane? By a large majority people recline. And by a huge majority passengers understand and don’t really see any reason to fuss.
Where do you come up with this? A large majority of people recline? Also your earlier claim that the airlines expect a majority of passengers to sleep?
I assume this is a whoosssshhh.
My company, would never know. I upgraded to first class on my own dime flying into San Diego last Sunday. I wanted stretch seating, but, what the heck.
I’m 6’4" 215 lbs. My Wife is 5’2" and 115 lbs. Coach is no problem for her. Hell her legs practically dangle off the edge of the seat. She can actually cross her legs. For me, with my long legs and size 13 feet, well. Coach is miserable. More so if someone reclines the seat.
So, I’m VERY happy that airlines are making stretch seating more available. It wasn’t so about 4 years ago. At least on the flights I took.
I usually just have a ginger ale.
Because I don’t want to cook frmo scratch, and every restaurant does it. Why else?
Um, it’s not my soles that are sensitive, it’s my knees.
I recognize that you probably don’t WANT to cause me pain, but you are doing that.
In addition to being surprised that so many people seem to be able to fit their legs behind a reclining seat, I am surprised by the comments about sitting “bolt upright”. The default recline of an airplane seat is quite a bit more than, say, my kitchen chairs. It’s comparable to how I sit when I lean my office chair back – not at all how I sit when I sit “bolt upright”.
If you have a bad back and the seat is truly uncomfortable, I wonder why you fly at all. It must be quite miserable. But probably, you have the same limits on your time that I have.
The airlines do. Several of them are now offering “more space” for a modest fee, rather than making you choose between coach and first class, where first class is prohibitively expensive.
But your pretending that people who have legs just want to complain is on level with the people who think that the only reason you recline is to be malicious to the person behind you. Seriously, it doesn’t do any good to pretend the other person is not being affected by your choice.
Because that’s the ticket you bought. A standard coach ticket includes a reclining seat, limited legroom, and a tray table that was designed to temporarily accommodate a flat meal tray.
Premium tickets generally include a reclining seat, more legroom, and a tray that is useful as a workspace. These are great features that you may, understandably desire.
But if your ticket doesn’t include those features, you don’t get them. And it’s a dick move to bully the guy in front of you into giving up stuff he paid for because you really really want stuff you for not pay for.
Yup. And people who can’t help but be annoying, like crying babies.
No, that person is affected by the airlines choice in seats. (I had no say in the seats whatsoever!)
And their own choice to fly this airline. (I chose a reclining seat, and will use it.)
The only people to take your complaint up with is the airline. And until you do, no one need take you seriously.
Just like the other 99% of the passengers on your flight.
Or any flight.
Good user name/post combination.
Allegiant Air has done away with reclining seats, as has Spirit. cite
Someone, somewhere must have complained.
So for fucks sake, Elbows, can you please stop making assumptions and telling us to write letters?
(ETA: Something tells me that you commandeer the armrest as well)
mmm
What a bunch of pissy whiners.
I fly quite a bit. Most of it long-haul international. I’ve never had a problem with the guy in front of me reclining his seat because when he reclines his, I recline mine and go right the fuck to sleep. You immature children need to learn to suck it up. It’s only 15 or 16 hours out of your life. Deal with it.
You said upthread that you’re 5’6" but have uncommonly long legs. I’m wondering how long. I’m a 5’11" man, and I’ve never had problems with my knees being crushed by the seat in front of me.
No offense intended here, but do you have a larger-than-average butt that forces your knees to be farther forward than mine?
I’m at a loss to understand your inability to enjoy a snack from your tray table while the passenger in front of you is reclined; I have never had difficulty with this.
If the recline of the person in front of your standard economy-class seat renders you unable to use your laptop - or perform carpentry, or sewing, or engine repair, or any of a hundred other pastimes for which the tray table may not always be well-suited - I recommend upgrading to an economy comfort plus or exit row seat, which will provide the additional seat pitch to meet your needs.
Likewise if you have bulbous buttocks and/or 98th-percentile femurs.
This. Especially the last sentence.