Mile High Manners: Sensible Solutions to Mealtime Seat Wars & Late Arrivals
Miles P. Flysalot January 14, 2015
Traveling can be a tricky business, one that’s often complicated by unexpected, misery-inducing difficulties. You’ve got tightened airport security to deal with, not to mention delayed flights, discourteous strangers and maybe even a screaming child to top it all off. Sometimes it feels like the whole ordeal isn’t worth the hassle, but fear not! Mile High Manners is here to lend a helping hand and guide you through the polite “do’s and don’ts” of flight etiquette, regardless of the class you’re seated in and situations you come up against.
Have you ever faced an in-flight encounter or unexpected situation at the airport which you were unsure of how to handle properly? Send your dilemmas to us at [email protected] and check back every Wednesday as we endeavor make the travel experience more enjoyable for everyone.
Q: Is there a rule or something about putting your seat in the upright position during meal service? If not, there should be! Space is tight enough in economy, so when I drop my tray table and the jerk/guy in front of me doesn’t bother to straighten his over-reclined seat as the flight attendants come by doling out meals, my seat starts to feel like a mini plastic-enclosed prison! If there’s not a rule they’re in violation of or the flight attendants let it slide, how do I get them to sit up while I’m eating?
A: These days it feels like a futile undertaking to complain about the lack of space (or of any sort of common comfort for that matter) on an economy flight. As airlines put more money and resources into making first and business class feel like the right side of paradise, economy inevitably gets left behind.
Space is almost always the most pressing issue people care about when flying. In my opinion, there is literally nothing more annoying than when you finally get comfortable in your seat and the person in front reclines theirs. You end up feeling like you’re, as you put it, trapped in “a mini plastic-enclosed prison!” I am of the opinion that economy seats should have no reclining capabilities whatsoever, that way everyone has the exact same amount of space and there can be no possibility for disagreement. Everyone is equally miserable, you see?
This whole issue becomes more troublesome during meal service. Unfortunately, there is ambiguity when it comes to “the right” solution, as flight crews run the cabin differently depending on the airline. In a perfect world and on a perfect airline, all seats would be in the upright position while meals are being distributed.
We don’t live in that world or fly on that airline though, so if the flight attendants are occupied or don’t ask the passenger to straighten their seat, your best bet is to lean over and kindly ask the individual if they wouldn’t mind putting their seat upright whilst you eat.
Remember: You catch more bees with honey than you do with vinegar.
Q: The airport in my town is pretty small (we’re talking six gates) so I’ve never been one to abide by the “arrive two hours prior to departure” rule. Prior to last week, I’d always been able to breeze through check-in and security in around 15 minutes or less, but then… I showed up 30 minutes before boarding, paid the taxi driver, passed through the sliding doors and BAM! Seas of people! It was too late to check-in on my mobile, and there must’ve been 20+ people waiting at my airline’s counter, and I panicked! After asking those in front of me, I learned that most of the crowd was checking in for a later flight. Knowing this, I tried to go up to the counter and plead my case, but the agents were furious and refused to listen! I ended up missing my flight because I didn’t know how to explain myself or even who to explain myself to! What should I have done?
A: I readily admit that I, like yourself, have always been perplexed by this constant need to arrive hours before the flight is due to take off. Of course I understand the practicalities associated with this approach. Flying isn’t exactly the same as hopping on a bus or catching a train, after all. There are a lot of extra factors you must take into consideration — namely, in my case, how long it will take me to drag my body through the horror of customs — if you want to hit that brief window between your gate opening and closing.
If you don’t play by the early-bird rules, then you naturally run the risk of disaster, as you unfortunately learned the hard way. I’ve found that the size of the airport does play a part when it comes to planning my trip there, and I tend to take a more slack approach if I’m travelling via a tiny shed that passes for an airport, but life is nothing if not surprising and infuriating in equal measure.
I completely understand that it must have been frustrating stuck behind a line of people waiting for flights in the near future, but I’m afraid they’ve played by the rules and you haven’t. This was a harsh lesson for you, and I hope it’s taught you to just suck it up and arrive at the airport (whether tiny shed or bustling hub) in plenty of good time. Prevention is the best cure for anything.
[Photo: iStock]
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Whenever I've flown on Air France I've found them to be very aggressive in asking/requiring passengers to not recline during meal service. It's really up to the airline to solve this problem, and at least some of them do so.
Airlines should designate -- and lock -- one or more columns of seats to be non-reclinable. As people grab or avoid these seats, the demand will sort itself out. Then if you are passionate against reclining, there's a seat for that!
On the second issue, in long lines I have sometimes seen staff asking if anyone in line is waiting to check in for the earlier flight and escort them to the front, but I'm sure they don't have to do that. However, I used to cut it close, and realized it was often stressful. I was that guy running to the gate. A number of years back I consciously changed to get there at the appointed time (early), and in the bigger airports have come to like spending a little time in one of the lounges (through credit cards, ticketed class or status) working on the laptop with a coffee and not stressing about the flight. And I always check in online as close to the 24 hours as possible, too. Too many times, I find there are flight or equipment changes which I can then prepare for (and which sometimes allows me to switch to an even better flight at no charge).
ANA CAs always have enforced seats returned to upright in Y during mealtimes IME. Except that a few years back they started putting articulated slidey seats on long haul aircraft, so no longer needed. But those seat were hated on Flyertalk and elsewhere. They are now being replaced with recliners again, no doubt the rule of upright seats during meal times will return.
For Q1, it depend on the airline of course, but at least on Qantas the rule is that seats are to be placed back into the upright position during meal times (unless you don't have anyone behind you). sdsearch, those shell seats you speak of, I've only ever sat in one once and I hated it. I would chose to fly an airline just because they don't have them. Cathay Pacific had them in their economy section for a while (where I had the pleasure of) and they quickly removed them. They pretty much work by chopping the pax legs off at the knees, and this is an Asian airline where the pax are typically much smaller than on western airlines.