Originally Posted by
lhong
PTraveler, did you even read my post? I don't agree it's okay, and I take reasonable steps to preven this. As I said before, it's roughly 99% effective.
I did read your post. Tell me if I got this wrong: there will be times when your child will kick my seat, despite your best efforts. I don't think I got that wrong.
Sorry, you do not have the right to allow your child to kick my seat, even if on 99% of the flights your child is on, he or she doesn't kick seats.
I am going one step further. In your ideal world, zero seat kicking would occur. I am trying to HELP you make that happen.
See, this is exactly what I mean. To you, a world in which children do not kick seats is an unrealistic, utopian ideal that will never be achieved. Sorry, but this is exactly the attitude to which I object. In the everyday real world it is
never acceptable for a child to kick the seat in front (and, to be absolutely clear, I'm not talking about the kind of interim contact that everyone confined to tight seat pitch commits -- as I've said, kids get just as much slack as anyone else in that regard).
As I said before, I am willing to change, to make things better for you. I am not willing to pay 60k to prevent a single incident, and I try as hard as I can to book bulkhead whenever possible. If you have any other suggestions on how I can make life easier for you feel free to offer them. However, your continued rants make me believe you are not interested in a solution, you'd rather just complain.
Sorry, but it's your child and your problem. I don't care whether or not you are willing to spend more money to fly, or whether or not bulkhead seats are available on a specific flight. You have absolutely no right, no entitlement, no privilege that excuses your child's kicking the seat in front. "I want to travel with my kids," doesn't mean you can annoy the person seated in front of you anymore than, "I want to groove with my music" means the 20-something can annoy HedgeFundFlyer.
As a lawyer, you should be ashamed to write such a statement. Of course we can impose on people as a matter of right. Laws and the legal system are all about balancing competing interests, and yes, rights.
Then tell me what gives you the right to impose on strangers when you fly.
For example, I cannot fire up my table saw before 7AM. However, at 7:01 AM, I can run it, my radio, and do it all with my garage door open, regardless of how late my neighbors want to sleep in. I am imposing on their right to peace and quiet by exercising my right to run power tools at 7:01am. The police can determine if my noise is excessive, and if so, I will be asked to turn it down. If not, my neighbors are out of luck.
You misunderstand the law of nuisance as well as the noise ordinances in most jurisdictions. However, I am not talking about legal rights. You're not suggesting that, because there's no express law against a kid kicking a seat on an airline, it's okay to do so, are you?
Similarly, the FA can determine if the kicking is excessive - if not, you are out of luck. It's a matter of degree. Like I said before, our society is based on balancing competing interests - excessive kicking will get stopped by the FA or in extreme cases, the police. Non-excessive kicking, you will either live with, or fly in a private jet.
Exactly right. And I've said, several times, that the issue in this thread isn't "non-excessive kicking," i.e. casual or occasional contact with the seat in front.
Feel free to ask, but you are going to get ignored, because in the real world, that's what happens to complaints without solutions.
You may think that if you like. I'm fairly certain that neither the airline nor the FA will agree.