Seat Recline in Economy - Regulation
Anyone know of a Korean Air policy that says you can't recline your seat in economy? My wife and I were on a recent flight from KIX to GMP. It was a super early flight, so my wife just wanted to catch a few Z's on the way. As seems typical of Asian airlines, even on short flights, a meal was served in economy class. This prompted several flight attendants to try to force my wife to raise her seat back, claiming it was regulation. It seemed they really were just trying to cater to someone with status, sitting behind my wife, to make sure this person could eat without a seat reclined into her space. They stopped pressuring my wife after what appeared to be the other passenger waiving away the flight attendant.
Some notes: I think the person behind my wife had status because she got her drinks way before any service started. I also noticed the flight attendant look at the passenger behind my wife, as if to acknowledge them motioning something, and that's when the flight attendants stopped pressuring my wife to return her seat to the upright position. Lastly the seats had plenty of pitch. I think it was 34 inches of pitch, so not exactly crammed by any means, and my wife reclining would not be impacting the person behind her.
Anyway, my wife resisted and it made me super nervous and her pretty upset. I'm just wondering if there is some regulation. I know we're supposed to comply with instructions, but this seemed pretty ridiculous. Generally in the US you can comply and hope to be compensated for your issue later, but this was new territory for me. Any thoughts?