Recline in Your Airline Seat – WWGRMD

Recline in Your Airline Seat - NY Times, Feb. 15th, 2020 

I made 108 flights last year.

As much as I find the long list of do’s and don’ts monotonous “oh, is that how you buckle and unbuckle a seat belt…I’ve never ridden in a car that was built after 1965 so this is big time learning for me”, I’m happily anticipating seat recline policy being formalized in the pre-takeoff spiel.

Last year, I took a 15 hour red-eye flight from LAX to Doha in Qatar. As the dinner service was removed, everyone reclined their seats but the woman behind me was having none of it and began violently pounding on my seat. I put my seat up and waited for a flight attendant to be walking up from behind and then put it back down. The woman behind me fell for the bait and began pounding the E36 M3 out of my seat again and I spun around and loudly delivered a prepared objection. The flight attendant had to spend ~two minutes getting the woman to understand that I had a right to recline my seat.

So, WWGRMD?

Oh, I don't miss the "glamour" of business travel.  

In reply to John Welsh :

Oh man, I know.

I posted elsewhere that I lost ~36 pounds last year without even trying due to an extreme travel schedule.

I don't recline because there is so little effect it does me no good. I do think you have the right to recline. When someone does in in front of me I'm not inconvenienced.

Some people are just territorial. Domestic flights I'll put up with the cheap seats. Long haul overseas flights are in first class. My ass is gonna lay flat for 18 hours if I want.

Recline, if that's the expected norm for a flight like that.  Banging on a seat is what a child does, and she should be treated as such.

It's reasonable to expect the person ahead of you may try reclining their seat, so if this doesn't work out, a reasonable person would say, "Excuse me, you're hitting my knees", or whatever the problem is. Anyone who makes a different sort of response can be assumed not to be a reasonable person.

You have the right to recline your seat until it interferes with the knees of the person behind you.

It seems like many travelers feel entitled to the space they have payed for. When I travel I feel like I just need to get through it and adapt to what is needed. 

Unless it is business or 1st class most travelers are just cattle on a trailer - there is no amenities, just suffer through it. 

If everyone was just slightly tolerant of each other it would probably help a lot. ​​​​​​​ 

I love the video of the man baby hitting the seat. So silly 

I'm 6'3" so strapping myself into one of those airline seats gets more uncomfortable every year as they keep smashing them closer and closer together.  At one point, I can recall reading a newspaper article about the then-new game consoles and video displays in the back of the seats and some airline exec claimed that their research showed that people would rather have those entertainment devices than additional leg room.  I would like to find the people that this exec talked to and have them all rounded up and shot.

I don't recline my seat when I fly because I often will manage to fall asleep before take off and not wake up until after landing and I don't want anyone waking me up to move my seat around.  That said, there's a button on the arm that reclines the seat.  If the seats weren't supposed to recline, they wouldn't have that button. 

If you find it annoying that the person in front of you has reclined your seat, I would just encourage you to use the time to meditate and think about all the things that you have done in your life that someone else might have been annoyed by.  We're all stuck here on this rock together and the fact of the matter is that we all do something that annoys someone else.  So, basically, get over yourself and quit whining like some petulant child.

I'm convinced that reclining the seat does nothing - Unless I'm trying to work on a laptop and the person in front of me reclines their seat.

I'm all about just removing the button. I almost never press it and half the time the flight attendant will ask me to put my seat up before landing anyway.

Many airlines are moving to non  reclining seats. They are slimmer and let them pack more people in :D

In reply to java230 :

Good times, good times.

I cannot sleep on a plane, and my neck hurts no matter what I do, so I never recline. I am bummed when the person in front of me lays all the way back, but I have never once done or said anything about it. They have that right, I can lean back if I want to, that's life, deal with it. I don't think of them as inconsiderate, I'm just unlucky. To me, it's the same as sitting next to someone who smells or can't fit in one seat or eats a fish sandwich...luck of the draw and part of modern air travel. To avoid it, that lady could have 1) stayed home 2) taken a ship to Qatar or 3) paid for a class that allows full lounging.

My appearance generally lends a look of berkeleyin leave me alone. Works well. 

I recline the seat.. I had one lady punch the back of it.. one time.. good for her.. If she dosne't like a reclining seat she should try the bulkhead row in the back.. 

If it reclines, I recline it. It is a couple of inches. Maybe. It doesn't impact legroom so far as I can tell. They can deal with it.

Brett_Murphy said:

You have the right to recline your seat until it interferes with the knees of the person behind you.

Sadly, on most equipment, my knees are resting against the seat ahead of me with the seats in the full upright position.  This is to be expected when airlines treat their paying customers like cattle.

I design airline seats

I recline every time

Recline does impact knee-room, but that will vary from seat to seat based on the back-pivot location.

Why would they even let you recline if you're not supposed to? Recline, baby, recline!

Brett_Murphy said:

You have the right to recline your seat until it interferes with the knees of the person behind you.

It really is this simple.

ProDarwin said:

I design airline seats

I'm more surprised you got at 15 hour flight to Doha from LAX. The multiple times I went Doha last year I couldn't get anything less than a 18 hour travel day and that was flying out of Philly or Charlotte. I may have intentionally missed a layover in Madrid knowing full well the next flight out to Doha was 24 hours later. 

Anyways - if it's available on the plane and you paid for the ticket, it's fair game. If the person behind you respectfully asks to adjust so they can be comfortable then I feel you should respect that. We're all suffering in the same cesspool.

I stopped counting when I hit 70 flights last year and I didn't hit the recline button once. Because despite what I just said I just find it annoying when people drop all the way back and now my viewing position on my ipad or inflight enterainment is thrown off. If a person is a butthead when I politely ask them to re-adjust for my comfort I simply ask the flight attendants to remedy the situation before I get petty and become restless 

Take another Xanax and chase it with another mini bottle of vodka. Nap time. 

I've never figured out how to recline my seats on flights, pushing the button, pulling a lever, nothing happens. 

ProDarwin said:

I design airline seats

How about you, one other brave GRMer, and I meet up at a bar and randomly select one of these career options to use in a pick-up line:

1. I design call center menu options
2. I design airline seats
3. I club baby seals

First one to score a phone number wins two ball joints or a fan belt or something like that.

In reply to RX Reven' :

Please listen carefully as our menu options have changed.