ahmetdouas

When they see my seat reclined they always tell me to raise it so the person can eat behind. I never argue, as they are right.

ltfly

I agree will all the above. It is the seat pitch in economy that is scandalous, not the people who try to make their flight time a little less uncomfortable.

Or increase the ridiculously small seat pitch.

ltfly

Interpersonal distances studies shows your personal space is 45cm around you, friend space is 1.2m around you, and your social zone is 3.6m around you.
How could anyone feel comfortable with 8 people (most of them, or all of them, unknown, so belonging to your social zone) within 50cm around you, for 10-12 hours for a long haul flight?

Globaliser

That sounds like another way of asking "How can anyone bear to fly in economy?" Yet somehow, hundreds of thousands of people do it every day without suffering any ill-effects.

No changes will ever come to economy that will make any significant difference in the context of the numbers you're posting about. Some extra pitch? It's going to be a few more inches/cm at most. Some extra width? Even less than that.

Arctic Troll

I deal with it the same way I deal with travelling on London Underground: headphones on and pretend nobody else is there.

As for seat recline etiquette, up at mealtimes but up to the person the rest of the time. They've paid for a seat that reclines.

djjaguar64

Seats are made for reclining,unless in exit row and the seat is fixed in an upright position. Nowadays the tray tables are attached such that the recline of the seat does not impact the passenger behind. I recline slowly and its my right. I expect people behind me to recline as well, when everyone is reclined no one will be uptight.

sandy_lyles_bagpipes

I don't recline in economy because I don't think my marginal increase in comfort is worth the bigger marginal decrease in comfort for the person behind me (exception, if the seat behind me is empty or perhaps if there's a small child behind me, then I would recline).

LondonElite

You forgot about infants in F.

Greenpen

I hate recliners on short haul. I push back at the seat or jam it. If they get to recline I kick it. Or stand up wrenching it here and there and here again. Or drap a paper over their heads so I can read it. Ryan Air got this right.

catharsis

Just to add to the debate, Mrs Cat & I were sitting in 16EF on a 789 in WT+ recently.

After the meal was over my wife (gently) reclined her seat, at which point the man in the seat behind (in WT+ remember) stood up, prodded her in the shoulder and asked her not to recline.

She wasn't bothered as she's tiny and we had 16DEF to ourselves, but I was distinctly unimpressed for many reasons.

His seat was fully reclined
I had purchased a seat (in WT+) which specifically advertises extra recline as a differentiator from Y - so any suggestion that the use of that recline is optional or is subject to the possibility of threats or intimidation from the person behind is unacceptable.
He laid his hands (albeit only just) on another passenger.

I am aware that this is a definite FWP - but since we are discussing the topic I thought I would add the datapoint that this appears to happen in WT+ also

Ms.O

Last summer on an Edinburgh to Gatwick flight, I went into full on stern teacher mode over a person reclining their child's seat.

A woman with an infant was sat in the window seat next to mine, due to the confined space and the fact that her baby had on some type of metal brace contraption attached to his legs, plus he was wearing a helmet, getting the baby extender seat belt on him was difficult, so of course I helped her get settled.

In front of us was a woman sat on the aisle seat with her two small children in the two inside seats. The window seat child was blasting his video game to the entire plane. It was so bad that the flight attendant asked him to mute it or use headphones. His mother grumbling pulled out headphones for him to use. He used them for about 10 minutes and then went back to blasting the audio to the whole plane.

When she wasn't dealing with her child, she was staring at the baby next to me, who by the way was super well behaved.

As soon as the plane hit cruising altitude, she promptly reclined her son's seat so that it was crushing the infant next to me. I immediately tapped her on the shoulder, gave her my best teacher glare and told her to put the seat back as it was crushing the baby. She apologized profusely said she hadn't seen the baby and put her son's seat back into it's upright position.
The mother next to me thanked me.
While I understand that people have paid for the right to recline their seats, it is common sense that you should never crush a baby!

ltfly

In fact, I do travel in economy, only, long haul included. What I meant is that I find the seat pitch in economy really uncomfortable, and I'm giving figures to show how it works and affects passengers.
So, I am not surprised to see how a reclining seat can really affect someone's already too small space. As you say, Globaliser, we cannot hope for significant changes in seat pitch, unfortunately.
Yet, I would be happy to see regulations that impose a more reasonable minimum pitch than we have now, because as long as there no regulations, airlines can go as far as they want in further reductions.

KARFA

Although logically a baby/young child in a seat is less "crushed" than an adult in a seat when the person in front reclines.

windowontheAside

That story about being crushed was about a lap child.

KARFA

So it was. Seems the person in front presumably didn't realise.