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Comment by shortformblog | Hacker News Reader

I just wish that, if they're gonna shrink the seats, they would prevent them from reclining. That, I think is a big part of the reason why the smaller sizes are so terrible.

A few months back, I had a pretty terrible experience on a flight when the woman directly in front of me, who was maybe 5'2 and 120 pounds, decided to recline her seat all the way back. It made what was already a cramped flight for me (I'm definitely not 5'2 nor 120 pounds) pure torture. I did all I could to try to convince her to push it up, but she wouldn't.

The flight attendant—this was Delta, by the way, so screw them-sided with the person in front, saying it was "their right" to recline their seat in a way that makes people uncomfortable.

This was on top of a bad flight situation where I was dropped off to a different city than my luggage because my connecting flight was delayed.

The flight attendant tried to appease me with beer. She would have better appeased me had she ignored her airline's policy in what clearly was an unfair situation.

That's the problem with flying these days. They constantly force passengers to choose between one undesirable choice and another, and nobody is happy as a result.

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Look mate, I am sorry to break the news for you but the woman in front of you was totally within her rights to push her seat down. This is not something that is granted from the back passenger in a plane. BTW, there are seats with more space near the emergency exits that can be bought for a small fee. If you are big you may want to consider that.

Actually reminds me of a crazy bitch that insisted that I don't push my seat down, while at he same time had her seat pushed down (guess it is called "maximizing space"). But this was nothing that could not get fixed with a short yelling at her.

This is why I'm always happy to pay extra for United seat 21D.

Sounds interesting. On which model aircraft is this a prime seat?

I forget the exact models (I always check seatguru), but some if not most of the 737s.

It's the rear most exit row aisle seat (I've developed some kind of flight anxiety/claustrophobia and medically need the sightline space of the aisle) which can recline, but the ones in front cannot.

You can also pay another extra fee if you want a free beating. That one is not listed on the menu though.

If reclining the seat will crush the knees of the person behind you, the seat shall remain in its upright position. The mechanical ability to do a thing is not a justification.

If you don't fit in the seat with the next seat reclined, you should pay for economy plus.

That's not always possible on every flight. Every airline has a different system and set of rules. Some airlines don't offer a system for paying for emergency exit seats. Other times the seats might already be booked. Sometimes the cost is prohibitively expensive.

When that happens you're stuck with the situation of having your knees caps smashed, just so someone can tilt their seat back a few degrees.

It's a very strange situation to agree that someone should have a small privilege to the discomfort or even pain of someone else.

That makes 0 sense, why should the longer person pay tax for their genetics? Also don't recline if it causes physical pain to someone else. Wtf is wrong with you

What if you get on the plane and realise that the seats are so close to each other that you no longer fit in the seat with the next seat reclined? Are you expected to research the pitch values for each aircraft used by each airliner before purchasing a ticket, lest your kneecaps get crushed?

Yea, you know when I buy something, I learn about it. If I don't want to spend time learning about it, I find a brand/model that always has what I want. I don't buy the version that consistently doesn't have the feature I want and then complain about how it should be better.

Where do you go to look up the pitch values for the aircraft used by a given airliner?

https://www.seatguru.com/charts/generalcharts.php

I find it hilarious that you're downvoted for "tall people should pay for economy plus" while "fat people should pay for two seats" is near the top of this very discussion. As a tall and thin person, shame!

Well being tall isn't a choice unlike being fat

Maybe it shouldn't be within her rights, is all I'm saying. The airlines could fix this easily. If the seats didn't decline, then there wouldn't be an issue. This is only an issue because they were designed in a way that allowed for such reclining.

It's a bad design choice with such limited space to add functionality that complicates an already tenuous situation.

This forum is one that frequently discusses issues of inefficiency and good design. How is it that these seats, specifically their unnecessary ability to decline, aren't seen as an example of bad design? Very few seating options need reclining capabilities, especially on short flights.

ANA have a new fixed-back seat that "reclines" by sliding forward, so that it doesn't intrude on the person behind you. All airlines should adopt that seat.

well you have also right to fart, burp and do other things but we have something called manners, you know, for situations where your can legally annoy other people, usually normal people try to be nice to each other and not be dicks like reclining seat if there is behind me 2m tall person

if you think just because you have right to do something it's ok to do it i feel sorry for people around you

Why is it unfair for the person in front of you to recline her seat? She paid for that seat just like you.

Now I'm not saying she shouldn't have brought it back up when you asked. I know I would have. But there's no fairness doctrine here.

It'd be unfair if you are the sole arbiter of who gets to recline their seat.

Then it's not unfair to bump them seat when using the restroom. I paid for a certain amount of space, which includes the ability to get up from the seat.

You didn't pay for any space. You paid for the use of a seat for that particular flight.

I'm not sure how you're arguing I don't have the ability to use the restroom. If I did pay for the ability to use the restroom, then I can bump someone prevent me from exiting my seat if they won't free me from restraints.

Also, you do not have a right to recline, if there is a baby carrier behind you, you will be unable to.

There's no way I can get up from the seat without the person/people between me and the aisle getting up. Is this what you mean? Also I agree you should get up periodically, it's not healthy to stay in those terrible cramped seats for so long.

I've never had someone sitting next to me, who wasn't asleep, not move for me to exit. I have had people with their seat back not take it up when asked

Yes, my argument breaks down pretty quickly, good point.

Pretty sure they are saying that no one should get the right to recline their seats when the seats have gotten small enough that someone that's 6'4" (I am) has to sit with knees pushed into the seat in front already before the person in front reclines...

Right, but the fault is still entirely with the airline, not the passenger who reclines their seat.

Most people know how tall they are. If someone who is 6'4" buys a ticket on an aeroplane, knowing that they can't fit in the space guaranteed to them, then it doesn't seem reasonable to put 100% of the blame on the airline.

As United says, "We know you have a choice of airlines when you fly".

What if they don't know they can't fit in the space guaranteed to them? To know this you need to know the pitch used for that particular aircraft, and how that is affected by a seat reclining in front of you. Do you expect people to look this up before buying a flight ticket?

I'm 6'6" and haven't flown in nearly two decades - I have no idea if I'm going to fit into a seat at the moment, and have no idea how to check. I'm facing my first work flight next month and a honeymoon in January, and don't know what to do to make sure I'll have enough room. I know there's seat length available online, but who knows if I'll measure correctly and end up wedged into a seat I can't possibly sit into.

A reasonably fit 6' - 6'4" person with average proportions will fit comfortably in a "Plus" seat. I'd imagine 6'6" wouldn't be too different.

Make sure it's a "Plus" seat though. I guarantee a regular seat will be an exercise in pure misery for the duration of the flight.

If I were in the top 1% by height (which 6'4" is), then I'd probably have encountered this issue before, and know ahead of time of the risk.

It would be silly for someone in this situation not to look.this up before buying a flight (using seatguru or similar). Just like checking the length of the sleeves is a good idea when buying a shirt online.

While you can check seat pitch with seatguru, a lot of airlines don't allow you to choose seats at the time of booking, and some don't allow booking of extra-legroom economy seats at all. Others charge prohibitively expensive fees for booking the better seats, and sometimes the good seats just happen to be completely taken.

It's also worth noting that there's just not a lot of variety in seat pitch. It's not like I can book a flight with Long and Tall airlines!

Yes, it's difficult, and I wish the airlines provided better information and booking tools.

But my point still stands: if someone _knows_ they are too big for most economy seats, and still buys a ticket which doesn't guarantee a suitable seat (because they don't want to pay the price, or because they don't want to change their schedule to a day when such a seat is available, or because they choose an airline which doesn't let them book seats at all) then it's not fair to put 100% of the blame on the airline.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like there to be a wider variety of seat sizes in economy (maybe smaller folks like me could get a cheaper ticket for a smaller seat!).

"I just wish that, if they're gonna shrink the seats, they would prevent them from reclining."

Which is the root of what the original comment was asking for. The rest was anecdotal of a bad experience.

It's an American cultural phenomenon. I've always been intrigued by the origin of it. At some point someone even invented and sold a device to prevent the person in front of you to recline their seat:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_Defender

I guess at some point someone popularized the notion that people reclining in front of you is a form of disrespect and it stuck in people's minds. I'm over 6ft tall and I hate coach seats as much as anyone (and living in South America, flying is usually an endeavor taking over 8 hours a pop) but I have never felt that the person reclining in front of me was wronging me in any way.

It might have to do with the usual brevity of domestic flights within the US (also leading to the colorful concept of a "redeye" flight).

I don't know if purely American. Flying domestically in Japan, people will ask if it is OK before reclining their seats.

Same on the Shinkansen, but then that’s not surprisingly given typical Japanese levels of politeness.

Is the person behind the potential recliner realistically able to say "no," or is that too impolite?

You shouldn't be directing your ire at your other passengers. The responsibility for this lies squarely with the airline, which knows full well about mean femur lengths and mean hip widths, and consciously chooses seat configurations guaranteed to be uncomfortable for a large fraction of their passengers, in order to squeeze more profit out of each flight.

If people make a fuss, and demand laws or government regulation for minimum dimensions of passenger spaces, that will establish a minimum floor on flight prices, but it will also ensure that everyone can be accommodated equally. If it's a race to the bottom anyway, it might be a good idea to build a floor at a reasonable height above rock bottom. Short and narrow people can then resent taller, fatter people for raising their fares instead of tall people getting angry about reclining seats.

If there was ever an argumentum ad absurdum regarding the wisdom of where airline seating has gone over recent decades, it is the existence of that device.

There is a place in hell for people that recline in coach. The 2" of reclining doesn't help anyone's comfort that much. It's the difference between being "mostly miserable" and "pretty miserable", like the difference between lowering the air temperature in a hotel room from 79 to 78 on a summer night.

I never recline (6'1) if I have to fly coach. It's disruptive to the person behind me, either their legs or if they are trying to work on a computer. Saying "it's their right!" is just a proxy for doing the reasonable and personable thing.

It's not just the space; reclining can be the difference between being stable or not. Often when sleeping in an upright seat, my CoG is such that I'll lean left/right/forward. Reclining at even a small angle prevent this.

Why, oh why don't reclining seats move the seat forward when they recline? Something like home recliners do. That way people are sacrificing their own leg room.

Boeing sells planes to airlines, not consumers. Our happiness is irrelevant because no one offers the reclining chairs, and no one wants to be the first-to-market because that's a risky investment given airline company's razor thin margins.

US airlines at least no longer have razor thin margins, thanks in part to the railroad-like (the modern US railroad system that is) oligopoly they've managed to acquire.

Delta has an 11% net income margin, a reasonable and normal profit level. $8.9 billion in net income on $80.3 billion in sales the last two fiscal years combined.

Southwest has a similarly solid profit margin. American Airlines would be similar, were it not for their debt load and some non-recurring hits (as it is, their net income margin is closer to 7% to 8%).

Keeping in mind these are net income margins, meaning after taxes. American Airline's operating income margin is closer to 13%. Delta's operating income margin was quite nice given the space, at 17.5%.

The comedy is, the same oligopoly that enables them to now be able to afford to significantly improve the customer experience, is what is likely to ensure they have no interest or need to do so. Perhaps there is still enough competition between the majors to drive that, given they're all relatively flush with cash and profits.

Indeed, if they've got an oligopoly then customer comfort is not something they're optimising for. In fact, it never was, in that customer comfort was just a means to attract a larger market share. If that's not a concern market dynamics demand a maximisation of profit including maximisation at the expense of, now irrelevant due to lack of choice, customer comfort.

All of these airlines are making billions in profits, that's billions with a b. Even if profit margins we're still thin, which if I recall correctly they no longer are for airlines, can you really argue that consumers have to be continually shafted when you are taking home that much money?

What? Who's arguing in favor of get fucked over?

I'm arguing that the lack of competition is shafting consumers because the free market can't express buyer preference when our preference isn't on the market - and that the status quo encourages airlines to not to compete by introducing a new variable.

Does Boeing even do the main cabin interiors? I assumed not, given the large variety of styles I've seen on identical plane models.

Boeing sells planes, not seats. Seats are BFE (buyer furnished equipment). You got a problem with the seat? Take it up with the buyer.

It doesn't really matter who makes the seats, my point still stands.

Some newer airline seats do.

Cathay Pacific did this years ago with economy clamshell seats, i.e slide forward, but apparently aggregate consumer feedback was bad and they were all withdrawn. Shame.

That some kind of misplaced racism here. Not sure how you think these Chinese stereotypes would have affected people's enjoyment of sliding seats?

More likely the sliding seats just weren't very good.

Curious. I've read your comment several times and I can't work out where you're seeing racism. Is it the word clamshell? That just means something that opens and shuts in my circles.

I'm not sure if there was a ninja edit or I accidentally replied to the wrong comment but I was responding to someone who was blaming "The type of passengers out of Hong Kong airport (ie Mainlanders)" on the seats not being adopted. It was definitely racist but yeah I look bad now lol.

The people that recline their seats complained louder than the people who quietly suffer when seats are reclined onto them celebrated; big surprise there.

I was on a Cathay Pacific flight to China in 2009 where the seats slid forward but the back didn't lean back much at all. It was awful. The flight and everything around it was otherwise one of the best flight experiences I've had. But not being able to recline your seat for 12+ hours lead to very little sleep and back pain for pretty much everyone in my travel group. In fact I think of the four people I traveled with I was the only one who got any sleep at all.

Round trips between Sydney and London via HKG for me. CX is a great airline, but those seats weren't.

The older Cathay seats were a fixed seat shell, but the padding could slide within the shell.

Essentially the seat did slide forward and the back moved down with it, but the problem was that the belt was fixed in place in the seat shell. For me that had the effect of driving the belt into my kidneys if I moved the seat more than a few degrees off fully upright.

Yea, I've never really understood reclining seats, especially on domestic flights. I've certainly never used mine, excluding 18 hr flights or something like that during the times when pretty much everyone is catching some shuteye (it doesn't really matter if the person in front of you is reclined if you are too).

Aircraft are not assigned to the same routes at the same times every day. They're chopped and changed all the time. It's impossible to have different configurations for different aircraft.

Small planes are not used on long routes though, and similarly, large planes are seldom used for short routes.

So they could disable recling seats on short flights with no problem.

I have low orexin (but fortunately not full-blown narcolepsy, like my sibling). It basically means that I fall asleep in any airline cabin the instant the safety briefing ends, and wake up when the wheels touch pavement. If I don't recline, and wedge my head in place somehow, I always wake up with severe neck pain, because my head lolls into uncomfortable positions.

Airline flying is simply too boring for my brain to be able to stay awake for it.

I completely disagree. I have a neck problem and not being able to recline the seat will completely kill me for any flight longer than an hour.

Also, how exactly does the seat in front reclining affect your comfort? Not being able to recline my own seat affects my comfort far, far more than the seat in front of me being reclined.

I didn't have enough space to even hold my phone in front of my face to read it because she had reclined back so far.

You have to remember that there are a lot of people on the plane of different shapes and sizes, so what might not bother you might be a huge problem for someone else.

That's the hill you want to die on? Inability to look at your gadget?

I'm sorry if I dare used a practical example of the bad situation I was in, rather than describing it in inches.

what might not bother you might be a huge problem for someone else

Exactly, that's what I'm saying. It goes both ways.

Was your seat reclined?

No, because I was trying to be thoughtful to the person behind me.

Think this might be part of the issue...

Just because I show a level of consideration to the person behind of me that I'm not personally afforded doesn't mean that this is part of the issue. The issue is a design problem created by the airline, and I'd rather be courteous to the person behind me if possible.

If you are a tall person, the reclined seat jams into your knees. Talk to me about your lack of reclining being worse when you literally can't move your knees for 4 hours because there's a hard piece of plastic jammed into your kneecaps. I'm 6'2'' which is tall but not unreasonably tall.

Or if you have a laptop on the tray or your knees. It gets jammed and could break.

I never use my main work computer (15") on flights for this very reason.

This almost happened to me. My screen got caught on the lip and started to flex. I barely managed to get them to stop in time

Someone doesn’t even have to be taller than average to feel the pain during flights. I’ve had multiple incidents where passengers inconsiderately reclined their seats without looking & asking, one time putting dangerous pressure on my laptop screen, and multiple times trapping my knees/preventing me from unlocking my knees...and I’m only 5’ 9”. One time the woman in front of me did it just so she could get more comfortable for using her laptop!

There is almost no excuse for not asking before reclining unless it is a very long flight (i.e. 10+ hours) or if the person is that shitty. Sometimes I wish people with that little regard for others would be barred from the privilege of flying :( .

I've never asked before reclining nor have I ever seen anyone else ask, ever.

As for laptops, I've completely given up on them on planes. It's just not feasible anymore.

Right, I shouldn't have to ask to recline my seat.

A little consideration and warning would be nice. Why is everyone here being so aggressive about their 'right' to recline?

Do I also need to signal when I move it forward in case you are leaning a tablet against it? I mean come on. Instead of looking at this from that point of view you should consider why you feel the need to be pre-warned of a passenger doing something they are allowed to do at any time.

I get it that coach is tight but I shouldn't have to signal to everyone that I plan to recline my seat.

Because you could injure me, or at least cause pain and discomfort when you slam your seat into my knees.

I am reclining my seat a few inches, not swinging a door open. Claiming you could get injured from that is ridiculous unless you blatantly push your knees up against the seat in front of you. Sit upright with your butt all the way in the seat and you won't have this problem when others decide to recline which is within their rights.

The least you could do is acknowledge to the person behind you that you're about to do it. You're acting as if you're being told to file a permit. On the contrary, it's pretty common courtesy.

I've been flying for the last 15 years regularly and never once witnessed someone forewarning the passenger behind they were clear to recline their chair.

I can't reply to your latest comment, presumably to some stupid pander-y HN ethics rule, but I've seen plenty of people who warn/ask the person behind them that they're going to recline. It's simple courtesy. To be honest, the fact that this doesn't even process with you makes you sound awful to deal with in any sort of transaction.

5'9"? How long are your femurs?

People reclining the seat in front of me in economy makes the flight basically unbearable for me. That's why I will never fly economy again for flights > 2 hours. From your comment I guess you are not very tall.

Book the exit row. The seat in front of it can't recline to ensure the pathway is open.

Bonus tip: if there are two exit rows back to back, pick the one in the back. It will be able to recline but can't be reclined in front of.

Yeah, that was great until the airlines made those $150+ "upgrade" seats.

It's not as if tickets have been getting cheaper, to compensate, either. It's gotten to the point that I simply refuse to fly domestic unless I am forced.

I am doing that whenever I can for the < 2 hour flights, but for longer flights economy is just too much of a pain anyway.

Few months back I was in coach working away on my laptop and the person in front decided to jam their seat all the way back. I barely managed to move my laptop before the screen got caught in the table lip thingy.

Personally, I'd be fine with less leg space (despite being 6') if it meant wider seats. I really don't enjoy being shoulder to shoulder or being smacked whenever they roll the cart by.

I'm 6'6" with broad shoulders. I can't take the window seat because of the curve of the plan. I usually have to take an aisle seat where I can (and also pay the extra for the legroom). The problem with the aisle seat, on long-haul flights at least, is that my shoulder sticks out a little, and every. single. fucker. walking by strikes it. I can walk down the aisle without hitting anything, but apparently no-one else in the known universe can. Tall, short, fat, thin, all of them. It's like people just slalom off the sides of chairs for fun.

It's not like I'm taking up a third of the aisle with my shoulder, it's only a couple of inches, but my opinion of the general public is notably worse after a long-haul flight.

Worse is when boarding and you're in the front row of econ and people will their bags and wheeled luggage smack into your face and knees. Just the other day I was hit in the face pretty good by some guys backpack. Confident people just don't care about anyone else on a flight. That's not even counting the people that can't wait to remove their carry-ons from above and they're way too heavy and fall down.

That's the scenario that scares me on flights. I've rescued my laptop in the nick of time a couple of times. I was pretty sure it was going to break one time.

The worst part is would they pay for it? The airline obviously wouldn't. Would the passenger? If they refused would the airline give me their info to file a claim? I assume not.

So I'd be stuck buying a new computer - and probably without a computer for part of the trip - while I did nothing wrong.

The airline wont pay, nor should they imo, and the person in front is just exercising his/her right to recline. The dangers of laptop crunch are obvious. If your employer expects you to work without paying business then they should pay, if not working put the laptop away or get a small tablet/netbook. Look at the space between upright and fully reclined as not really yours, just like sticking your leg in the aisle, at some point a trolley is going to accidentally hit you, so be it.

1. There are reasons to use a computer beyond just working.

2. If you damage someone else's property - whether on purpose or by accident - the decent thing to do is try to make it right. Are you required to in many situations? Probably not.. which is the cause of my original comment.

Working, youtube, giant ebook reader, candy crush desktop, vlc etc.. whatever it's your free choice to use a laptop in an environment that is not setup for such and deliberately in the space where the person in front can rightfully recline their seat at any moment. The airline sells you a seat from A to B, and in economy a very basic one - no one reasonable has any false expectations about this, they did not sell you a co-working hot working desk 38,000ft in the air with accidental damage insurance for your very important laptop.

If you put your laptop in the middle of the road and my car runs over it then I wouldn't be making it right, not the best analogy but its a similar shade of grey. Your position that this is either the airline or the guy/gal in front fault, and you've done nothing wrong, is laughable - it's your choice, your fault, was it a shock that the seat in front can recline and the person hasnt got eyes in the back of his head? how is a non-aisle dude even meant to know your using your very important laptop? I can barely move my feet nevermind my neck 180o and 50cm over the headrest..

Now, out of manners, if I noticed you had a laptop when I boarded or after going toilet, I'd probably try to give you a heads up presuming you werent on your noise cancelling headphones too, a brief 'hey dude, Im going recline in 30 seconds' but that's just me being polite, it's not mandated and I definitely don't expect it of the guy/gal in front of me when travelling economy.

Go business, or get company to underwrite the laptop use in economy, or just put it away... I don't think anyone in the seat in front would make you whole for your own careless mistake, anyone?

This. People just slam their seats back all the time. Slowly ease it back, or even turn around and make eye contact before you do it...

> Few months back I was in coach working away on my laptop and the person in front decided to jam their seat all the way back. I barely managed to move my laptop before the screen got caught in the table lip thingy.

If it was really pressing down on the top of the laptop's screen with significant force, wouldn't it push the tray table to extend toward you, relieving the pressure? Or are you not opening your laptop beyond 90 degrees?

To a certain extent, yeah it'd move a bit. The bottom of the macbook pro screens likes to catch on the edge of the tray table enough to be a problem.

I don't undrstand this. You know the seat can recline. I always position my laptop so the screen would be pushed closed instead of being jammed, in case the seat in front of me suddenly reclines. Maybe there isn't a configuration that allows this; then it's a calculated risk to use the computer anyway.

I wonder why this seat reclining problem has not been solved yet.

It doesn't seem that complicated, actually at least French trains have solved this by making reclining seats slide down their frame (and forward) instead of actually recline backwards into the rear passenger's space. It works really well, and the result is that reclining uses the reclining person's space and cannot bother anyone else.

However, these trains have more leg space and sturdier seats than regular planes, so maybe it's more difficult to achieve on a plane?

I'd imagine such a mechanism would be a decent bit heavier than standard airline recliners (as mentioned in the article, "Today, an economy seat that tips the scales above 9 kilograms (20 pounds) is, by an airline’s measure, too heavy to fly")

Also, if the seats slide downwards, does that impinge on the small luggage space underneath the seat for the person behind?

The seats don't just slide downwards, the seating part slides forward on the frame that is fixed, so in effect the top of the seat gets lower, the angle of the back increases, and the forward edge moves forward. The space under the seat isn't affected.

But yeah, the seats are probably bulkier.

this is largely going to be bad seat design, I suggest that you try and put your dollars with a different airline or choose flights on an aircraft with a better setup.

I agree with you on this fact. My last flight swapped carriers and one had significantly better seats than the other. (This also happened on a regional jet, which I think exacerbated the problem.)

But I think part of it is also location. Some airports are only served by one or two airlines, effectively limiting choice. So the result is that if I wanna get home, I'm stuck riding with the bad airline.

I generally prefer the train when the distance is reasonable enough.

I am always pleasantly surprised when people in front don't push back their seats. I make sure I don't to the person behind me but it's a domino effect if the person in front does. It's this weird phenomenon.

There are two things that I use to make economy flight bearable

- Stand for 30 min, then sit for 30 min or so. You will be surprised by how much better you feel by the end of the flight. I just grab Kindle and read it standing in the isle on domestic or walk to the back of the plane on widebody international flights (usually there is space there).

- Use inflatable pillow like this one https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06WVR48SW. You will get much better sleep with it

Are you "allowed" to stand in the back? Iirc you're no longer permitted to loiter around the galley area.

Though flight attendants probably don't give a

You can't stand in the front, due to security concerns with being near the cockpit. Back is fair game. More common on international flights, though. Plus international flights they have snacks in the back, so you can stand there and munch.

Great to know (knew about the snacks but was never sure if I was allowed to loiter). Thank you!

Remember, if you loiter politely while in flight, the worst anyone official will do to you is ask you to go back to your seat :) very little downside to trying even if it's "not allowed".

Buy these: https://www.gadgetduck.com/goods/kneedefender.html

You can fly spirit. No reclining seats.

Spirit is able to have the seats closer together than any other airline because of this. Their seat pitch is 28 inches, as compared to 30 or 31 for most others.

If they recline their seat, bump the back of it.

If the person behind you bumps you continually, recline your seat.

Passive aggressiveness as a considered plan seems like a bad idea. Maybe just ask the person not to?

Nothing more annoying then someone reclining it seat even during eating time, ignoring mine and steward's requests on a flight from Shanghai to Auckland. I ended up eating in one of the steward seat's accompanied by one of the stewards.

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