RustyC

For whatever reason they've had a tendency to assume airlines will be nicer to pax on things the airlines control, like the seat pitch, than airlines actually have been. Having two options on seat width seems especially cruel (i.e. a 9.5-wide fuselage that could be a 9 or a 10-wide). If any pax blame the aircraft maker, the aircraft maker will just say the airline chose that. I blame both.

Airbus hasn't been around as long but you see an awful lot of their product with ULCCs nowadays, especially the A319s and A320s with the non-reclining seats. While I can't say the passenger experience is great with those, the design does seemed premised on the airlines behaving in the way they actually do, so let's curve the side of the seats somewhat (a little bit more knee room) or not have much of a seat pocket or put it above the tray, etc.)

dinanm3atl

Similar story. During my short Southwest adventure between Delta to AirTran to Southwest to Delta...

Plane took off and I reclined my seat(aisle). Then I got what felt like a kid punching the seat. So I looked behind me and it's a grown woman. I asked if she could please stop and turned back around.

Then to my surprise my seat started shaking. She now had both hands on the seat and was violently shaking it. I turned around and say "Are you serious?". She said I needed to raise my seat because it was a problem for her.

So I pressed the FA button and shortly after the 10K buzzer went off the FA came and I explained to her what happened and she just turned to the lady and said the seats are designed to recline and she needed to stop and act like an adult. If she wanted she could recline her seat.

So she sat and sulked.

LondonElite

I will admit that I don't fly TATL economy a lot., but a fair amount of my short haul in both Europe and the US (and I average well over 100 segments a year) is in the back. No one has ever spoken to me about seat recline.

chris19992

That's during meal times though, I have experienced the same on Asian airlines (particularly SQ) where they ask for upright seats during meal times but any other point recline is allowed.
It's just common decency to have the seat upright while people behind you are trying to eat since people generally lean forward while eating on a plane.

trooper

But this implies they do it at ANY time.

Yes... for meals that is certainly true.... but Ive never heard it at ANY other time. That original comment is a little misleading.

GUWonder

Nothing misleading about my original comment. It implies they do it more frequently than US carriers, and they do.

Where is the common decency from the airlines that decided to reduce the space for the economy class passengers and since then increasingly demand that passengers unrecline the seat even when it isn't required under government/airline safety rules?

Do you realize that for some people the upright seat position is very uncomfortable, even painful? What's common decency then? If use of the seat recline is indecent at any time other than when required by government/airline safety rules, the party responsible for the lack of common decency seat reclining is the airline -- not the reclining passenger using the seat as it was designed, including at meal times.

mauld

Last month I was on OS VIE-EWR, after take off I went to recline my seat .... just slightly, NOT fully or even 1/4 back. The woman behind me violently pushed my seatback up and proceeded to loudly exclaim that she was ill and could not have me recline. The FA came and explained to her that I should be able to do so, the woman's husband seated next to her told her she was wrong... but for the entire flight she kept her knees pressed (or so it seemed as I was unable to move my seatback. (Not sure if she had one of those devices to keep it upright, but she was elderly and rather large, so I assume it was just her knees). Her husband proceed to sleep (or ignore her), and the FA just shrugged when I asked about it. Needless to say, not a good 9 hr flight back home.

Artpen100

Similar thing happened to me on an overnight IAD-CDG flight years ago. One of the things that got me to start reading FT and learning how to upgrade. It was not sitting in economy so much as the other passengers that were most annoying.

ft101

Both parties could be lacking common decency, it's not an either/or situation.

GUWonder

Both parties being those denying the use of the seat as installed by the airline: the airline crew demanding the seat not be reclined, and the complaining/resisting "passenger behind" the seat that reclines.

It can be an either/or situation, especially when the anti-reclining types are undermining the liberty of the passenger from using their own paid-for seat as designed/installed. It's a false equivalency that would blame the seat-reclining party for nothing more than lawfully reclining the seat as designed/installed as the seat-reclining party desires when encountering the anti-reclining party/parties that are opposed to the seat-reclining.

The airlines and "passengers behind" can pay for seats so there isn't a fuss made about people wanting to use the seat as designed/installed. Have a problem with a seat reclining in front of you as designed/installed? Then where is the common decency in not paying up for a seat that doesn't face this issue of a seat reclining immediately in front of one's own seat? It's lacking on the part of those trying to undermine the liberty of the person lawfully using their own seat at as it was designed/installed.

A lot of these "demands" to not recline the seat also seem to disproportionately be done along the axes of sex, size, and/or "race" and hit some people more than others while favoring others on the bases of sex, size and/or race. If someone pays for a two or three year old relative to fly in economy class, why shouldn't the little one be allowed to have his/her seat reclined to enable a better sleep/experience by using the seat as designed? And yet there's been a growing chorus of pax and FAs who complain about kids' use of seat recline as designed.

kb9522

You had an excellent post until you played the race, gender, and age cards all at once. A seat recliner is a seat recliner regardless of these characteristics. They have the right to use their seat as designed/intended, full stop.

ft101

Good spot, it should have said all parties, not merely both. Airline staff and both groups of passengers should all show common decency.

GUWonder

The point is that prejudices of various sorts are in play on airlines too. Do you really believe that those factors and size are never involved in how passengers deal with each other and in how cabin crew may deal with passengers.

kb9522

I really believe that race and gender play no part, yes. Age only to the extent that extremely old or extremely young travelers require additional assistance. And size only when it's an issue about encroaching seat space.

Do you really believe that FAs are bigots?

I don't mean to jump down your throat about it, it's just been my experience that people who claim such things are simply eager to play the victim card where no such issue exists. It makes my spidey senses tingle every time I hear it now.

MSPeconomist

Of course. Boeing's customers are the airlines, not their passengers.