Originally Posted by jmastron

Does anyone have a link to an official regulation about this? I've seen "No carry on bags under the seat ahead in exit rows" asserted before, either as a UK or a european thing, but I haven't been able to find an actual source for that. All of the hits I've seen are random blog-type "An exit row seat has more legroom, but here are the disadvantages" articles, which makes me wonder if this is a "everyone has heard from someone else that it's a rule, but...". I'm very happy to be corrected and pointed to the source, as I prefer to follow rules!

My experience was on British Midland in early 2001; my first time on any european carrier. My wife and I were put in an exit row LHR-DUB with small backpacks (and way too much checked luggage, that's another story and we travel very differently today!). The person next to us was very insistent that nothing could go under the seat, which having flown (respectable) US airlines I hadn't seen before. We would of course have been happy to put them up, so I politely asked the flight attendant where we should put them, who looked at our bags and said they were fine, just to make sure they were fully under the seat (which should be the case everywhere of course). I've since flown in a door exit row on a LH 747-8 (which is why I have had this thread subscribed for years ), but of course that was just a big open space with the FA jump seats across so no question, everything up.