MrMan

The Horror, think of the children

InkUnderNails

Not on WN.

kennycrudup

I sit in nothing but. 8 years on, I'm unscathed.

kennycrudup

... or you can just get up and get into the aisle so they can enter and sit. Nobody's climbing over me, either (mostly 'cause they can't, my legs are too long).

sdsearch

That can be tricky if you've got a laptop set up on the tray, especially in a row where the tray comes out of the armrest. That can be an awful lot of steps to get up and let somebody by. Yet watching something on a laptop is what I regularly do on flights. So I prefer the window so that (a) I can close the window shade myself (when I want to look at the screen and not out the window), and (b) nobody has to ask me to dismantle all that because they want to get into the aisle.

I suppose for those people who are content to watch movies on phones it's much easier, but I'm not into that.

(I almost added "and unplug the power adapter cord from the outlet in front of me", but then I remembered that this is Southwest .)

kennycrudup

I watch on my 10" tablet, and the cover folds into a stand, so it's a one-piece, one-handed operation.

That being said, 99% of my trips lately have been intra-CA (so a little over an hour door-to-door) and I'm always in the back and have a decent percentage of solo rows, so I can't remember the last time I was asked to let someone by.

flyertalker54234

The cockpit advises Flight Attendants when they should cease their duties and take their seats. If the plane was in turbulence then it is unlikely any FA would be standing let alone emptying overheads. There is always an announcement to take care when opening bins as contents may have shifted. What this actually means is beware times falling as clowns have overstuffed the bins or loaded items in a precarious manner.

Sounds to me like someone is taking the helpful actions of a flight attendant to try and build a lawsuit as it is easier than working...

If it was so turbulent, why did the pax ask for the item to be retrieved so urgently?

jeffandnicole

Based on your opening post, you squarely blamed the FA. Not once did you mention "Why can't passengers secure their belongings properly".

The OP already went there...

drphun

Right. The passenger may have had it somewhat secure, but then other passengers moved the pack around and the bottle got loose in the pocket. The problem is because that can happen, they could just as easily have lost their water bottle because it came out and rolled to the back of the bin. Everything needs to be inside the pack if they don't want to lose it or have it fall out of the bin. I definitely watch closely while anyone roots around in the bin above me, for knuckleheads dropping stuff or manhandling my bag - I didn't carry that camera equipment on just so have they could ram their too big to fit roller bag into it.

Agile

Statistics show that aisle seat passengers are more likely to get out of a crashed or on fire plane.

I have seen a full bottle of whisky fall out of a bin and hit a passenger on the head!

Stupid for anyone not to bend away from an opened bin above them though.

pvn

Right, these are just "piling on" details that are ultimately irrelevant. You see this a lot, often when the complainer knows the core complaint is a bit trivial so they try to make things as bad as possible, e.g. "my warm nuts were 3 degrees colder than brand standard, AND the FAs were gabbing in the galley" or "the front desk agent wouldn't upgrade me to the presidential suite AND he was rude" etc.

pvn

Why wouldn't you put the fragile stuff in your personal item under the seat in front of you???

honest_abe

I would consider the FA's action to be a little sloppy. Although I rarely fly any more thanks to TSA and airline policy, I always opened an overhead just enough at first to assure myself that nothing was trying to escape then I would open it further. An experienced FA should know and practice that. And, yes, it would be possible for someone to get seriously injured (particularly if it was a child) even by a falling bottle, particularly if they were looking up and the bottle hit them in their face.

But given all that, nobody as injured. No rules appear to be violated. If the FA failed to apologize, then it was even more sloppy of her. In that case, a remark asking her to be more careful or just mentioning it to the head FA to remind that FA to carefully open a bin and apologize for any accident, or even a feedback email to management if one is really upset based on potential danger, would be appropriate. But it is not worth the effort to file a complaint or consider a lawsuit or whatever in this case.

sdsearch

Or else in a Pelican case which will mean the stuff inside gets protected no matter what crazy stuff people do with items in the overhead bin.

formeraa

Bottom line: When someone is in the overhead bin above your head, you should watch carefully in case something falls toward you. Once an FA got upset because I watched her like a hawk when she was getting something from an overhead storage cabinet which was right behind my head. I turned around and watched her while she was getting extra cups or something like that. I've seen way too many things fall out of an overhead bin over the years. One time, an overhead popped open during takeoff and I held my hand over the door until the FA could get up to close it properly (it was an MD80, where the overheads were fairly low).