ajax

Hi folks - just wanted to share an experience and see how you would have reacted.

Last week I was flying on a BMI flight from a nearby European city (I know, but BA was too expensive!). Flight time was about 60 minutes.

10 minutes in, I reclined the seat about 3 inches, nowhere near fully. The man behind me started pushing the back of my seat quite hard as if trying to force it back to an upright position. I turned around, looked him in the eye, and said evenly "Please quit pushing my seat."

He then slammed his hand into the back of the seat, causing it to jerk forward but then it returned to the original reclined position. I was quite agitated at this point (and my neck was hurting) but said nothing further as I was not interested in starting a fight on an airplane.

A few minutes later after I had calmed down, I found an FA at the back of the plane and told her what had happened. I wanted her to be aware that the man had banged the back of my seat in case something worse happened. She didn't do anything, but she thanked me.

I returned to my seat to find my seat fully upright (the man had raised it in my absence). I reclined it again 3 inches. At this point, he started threatening me ("If you do that again, I'll f***ing slap you mate, you f***ing c**t.") and repeated this or similar about three times.

I bit my tongue (very difficult) because I was really not interested in getting in a fight on a plane over the Channel. I left my seat in the same position because at that point I refused to be bullied into righting my seat. had the man just asked nicely, I would have gladly complied.

The same FA from earlier then walked by. I flagged her and said that the man was now making threats. She again thanked me. The man behind then started to complain about me getting stroppy with him, etc. (completely false). She whispered to me "Would you please just right your seat for the sake of peace?" I had no problem, agreed and kept it upright until the gate.

The head FA (supervisor on BMI?) passed by my seat shortly before landing and said "I understand you've had a disturbance; would you like to come find me after the flight and tell me about it?" I agreed, found him on my way off and told him the story. He apologised to me and said that the only thing he could do was write my name in the flight report if I wanted but it would do no good. I told him not to bother as it didn't seem worth it and I really just wanted to get home. My neck was sore for a couple of days, but it was nothing major.

Personally, I feel no huge sense of guilt or remorse over reclining my seat; I understand and respect that it bothers some people, but there are adult ways to handle this situation and this violent, childish reaction was not one of them.

So my question is this: what would you have done in my place? Would you have reclined your seat at all? Would you have left it reclined? Would you have risked getting hit by this guy? His verbal abuse was so loud that people from 2/3 rows ahead were turning heads. Would I have been partially responsible had he chosen to hit me?