To Recline or Not to Recline
 

Here's a very interesting article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2002Apr24.html

All I have to say about this woman is what a witch.

The only correct information in this paragraph is that Economy Plus has a 36-inch pitch.

Even that's not correct. 36 inches of pitch is not 36 inches of legroom!

I try not to recline unless it's a red-eye and the person behind me is out cold.

I know how much I hate having the seatback in my face, so I try to spare others the agony.

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Life's too short to eat Domino's

many/most inner NorthAmerican flights for me are a kind of 'red eye' flight ... after a transatlantic- or a transpacific flight segment.

I normally don't eat anymore on those last segments of a long flying day and go right away to sleep (reclined). But mostly in business or two-class-first.

I guess my best argument for that 'behaviour' (here on FlyerTalk) is, that I must arrive refreshed for the arrivals-party FlyerTalkers might have arranged later ...

People displaying such anti-social behaviors should not be permitted to fly.


[This message has been edited by FWAAA (edited 05-02-2002).]

I disagree. I have been on some airlines where I had to turn my knees sideways in order to fit into the seat---it was that tight. When the person reclines into your face, not only does it become painful but you are unable to do anything. In cases like this the person in front of you should not be allowed to recline.

the airlines, in the first place, should not be allowed to offer such (reclining) seats then.

I completely agree with you here. I am going to recline if I feel like it -- it's my seat, and it has a recline button, so I'm certainly entitled to do so. Now, if there's something going on back there where you don't want me to, ask me.

But that passive aggressive stuff advocated by that witch about jamming her knees into the seat -- well, let's just say that I'd turn around, and say, could you move your knees so that I can recline my seat? And if she said, oh, it must be broken, then I'd say, well, let's find out -- please move your stuff and we'll see if I can. All with my best [expletive deleted] you smile, of course.

And then you can be **** sure that when I got that seat down, there is no way in hell that it would come back up until the flight attendants reminded me that I needed to do so for landing.

Its like a lot of things, it depends how you do it. If I am in coach, I usually try not to recline unless I really need to and if I do I sort of check to make sure somebody doesnt have a laptop or something up that could get caught on the tray and GENTLY recline. All this being said, I am not shy nor am I a fool and if I met this woman from Rockville, I can assure you my seat would go all the way back the whole way there even if that meant having dinner on my lap.

Note to self: NEVER sit in front of Tango. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

I hear ya! I'm tall and having endured painful 30-31 inch pitch for long flights, I'm darned glad that AA has added a couple inches. UA has added even more in E+.

What I always noticed is that the meager 18 degrees of recline didn't make it appreciably worse. If you're jammed into your coach seat when upright, you're already in H*ll.

Now that I have status (and almost always can be found in a roomy exit row if not upfront), I tend to feel bad about reclining the exit row seat into the legs of the non-exit row people behind me. Two weeks ago on a 15 hour JFK-NRT in an exit row aisle, I asked the aisle occupant behind me if he minded me reclining. He said that he would take the window seat so he'd have lots of room and I could recline. A civilized method.

I still feel that anti-social self-help like that witch Brijett displayed should earn her a grounding. She doesn't like pax reclining in front of her? Then she can move to a seat behind a non-recliner for all I care.

I must be strange. In all but the rarest cases, I actually don't find the recline in coach an increase in comfort, not even if my goal is to sleep. If I'm awake and trying to read (my usual plane passtime) the recline is totally pointless. There's no position that's very good for it, in fact, but upright is still better than reclined. For attempting to sleep (not usually succeeding) it's a toss-up, but in general I haven't found that reclining helps at all.

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--Greg

I have two rules:

1. A person's right to recline ends at my knees. (for obvious reasons)

2. If its a tight squeeze and the person in front must recline - I switch seats with that person. I reckon the worst that will happen is that I'll leap frog all the way to the front http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

Dave - London,UK