Who owns the space between reclining airline seats?
economist.com
economist.com
The only issue I've ever had with this was when a Lufthansa flight attendant barked at me to set my seat upright as I was napping while the person behind me was eating. It was a transatlantic flight.
Never flew Lufthansa again.
In terms of longer flights I find it ridiculous when people fully recline the second they are allowed to after takeoff. A small recline (20% for instance) is fine as it doesn't infringe on the person behind them and adds a sometimes necessary level of comfort that a fully upright seat does not. Fully reclining right after takeoff is rude and a breach of etiquette I believe.
The main reason why, on a longer flight that is, is because drinks and food are served pretty quickly after the aircraft is stable. This means the person behind you requires a tray for a time to consume their beverage and meal. Etiquette says you should allow the person behind you to take advantage of this space during this time. Even if you choose not to partake in this event, you should respect the person's behind you who may in fact need this space to enjoy (as much as they can!) their meal with ample space.
After the meal's waste have been collected is when I find it acceptable to go back all the way. This is often the time people begin to nap or sleep and the space is better used for this purpose.
Some common courtesy, compassion and politeness goes a long way in making a better, more enjoyable place for everyone.
For example, how everyone stands up immediately as soon as the plane lands. Someone 5 rows back managing to depart before you because you remained seated until it's your row's turn, but they have one of those oversized carry-ons and can't even get it down. So they essentially cut in front of you just to make you wait on them.
Don't want anyone to be any less miserable than I am while traveling. It would unfairly deprive them of a great character-building experience.
I completely agree that learning how to healthily express anger is extremely important, but I don't think we need to seed more misery amongst each other than what is happening by default already.
etiquette (n):
conventional requirements as to social behavior;
proprieties of conduct as established in any
class or community or for any occasion.
If anything, etiquette dictates that the person seated behind accommodate the leaner peacefully. And that the person behind him do the same.
I personally have always found it possible to use my tray, regardless of the recline of the individual in front of me. Sure, there's less space, but trays and seat-backs are very precisely designed to be functional in cramped simultaneous usage.
The difference in our opinions, I propose, is not whether etiquette matters. It's whether the impolite person is the one with the knees in the seatback, or the one leaning all the way back!
I'm 189cm / 6'2". My #1 flying pet peeve are people who push down the lever, slam all their weight on the seat, and rapidly recline their seat into crushing my knees.
A polite warning would be tremendously appreciated; it's similar to how a quick friendly wave of hand can make many road-rages terminate before they begin :)
I now have a note on my phone that simply says "Airbus 319 sucks." I hope I remember to check my notes before booking another flight w/ AC.
[+] As jonp mentions "With newer planes, the seat's pivot point is above the knees of the person behind.": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16022774
Side note, as also mentioned, raising the pivot point means that instead of my knees being crushed the person in front of me is now resting in my lap and has removed the space I had to work or read. It didn’t fix the problem, it just moved it.
That's not the behavior I think society should reward.
On the many flights I have taken, I have only seen a flight attendant do something once (aforementioned), and I'm not able to find a Lufthansa policy that backed her actions up.
(The higher priority I'd give to sleeping is not only due to the flight itself, but also to the general overhead related to flying: getting up early, driving to/from the airport, spending a lot of time in lines, hauling heavy luggage around, etc.)
In such tight economy cabins these days, I think part of the deal is to think beyond your seat and show some concern for others. There are other cabins available to stretch out more freely without concern.
One might be tempted to say, "every situation is different. Just ask the people behind you before you lean back, and comment to the people in front of you when you want them to lean less." But the problem with that is that most people want to sidestep the close-packing of the cabin by interacting with others as little as possible. Maybe a little polite conversation within the row, but that's it.
BTW, my flight attendant didn't point much of anything out. She angrily yipped at me in German, no smile, no sense of friendliness. It struck me as bizarre, totally counter to the interpersonal skill that usually characterizes flight attendants. I chalked it up to a combination of a difference in culture and a lack of corporate attention on politeness.
I have no problem with accommodating a polite request, although I lean back frequently and, other than that one instance, have never been asked to refrain from doing so by a passenger or flight attendant despite flying very often and almost always leaning back for some or all of the flight.
Even if the person behind you is made much less comfortable??
But let#s turn it around: if you need to recline in order to sleep, buy first class. Normal people can sleep sitting upright.
I'm not against reclining per se, I'm against reclining when you're physically hurting somebody. That's anti-social behaviour.
And I know that people can be irrational "on my side", as well. I just came back today from my Christmas vacation in an A320. The lady across the aisle was telling the young men in front of her to immediately put his seat upright. In a not-too-friendly voice.
It was obvious that the seat was already upright, it was in exactly the same position as the neighboring seats which were empty. After lots of button pushing and trying to comply the lady acted as if she was right and the young man had finally put his seat upright. That was a stupid, vicious woman.
I had one incident though where the guy sat next to me was huge and naturally overflowing into my seat, I was moved to an exit seat prior to take over, I still submitted a complaint as he should been assign two seats (weather that's free if medical or covered by the airline or his pocket I don't care - not my problem). I worry that scenario happening again, but I won't be worrying about recline, speak to the airline about your specific requirements as they not going to embraced by the travelling public - upright for several hours - no thanks.
Note to very tall people: KLM and FinnAir have economy comfort, this isn't premium economy, same poor seat width, but 3" more legroom. Emirates are also looking at dividing their economy class in multiple classes presumably some with more legroom. Extra legroom seats can be booked on SingaporeAir, Malaysia, Emirates, and Oman air^. You don't need Y+ if you just want more legroom. These seats are generally only $50-$100 more per segment. ^ Not exhaustive
I think you might just not be suited to traveling in economy if you need to demand the person doesn't recline, you've made his/her journey significantly worse by choosing a chair incompatible with your frame - yes its suck if your tall.
Cathay Pacific also asks for people to put their seat up during the meal time. However they're incredibly polite about it.
I haven't had the pleasure of flying Cathay Pacific yet, but I hear it's nice.
I believe it is a reasonable policy, but no one else seems to follow it.
First of all, you are only correct if assuming a gaussian distribution of heights (for which I have seen no evidence).
Who cares if it accommodates 3SD, 4SD or 5SD? You would never engineer a system around standard deviations of a distribution of heights.
Instead it's about marginal cost. Ideally you would accommodate 100% of your passengers unless their marginal cost is just too high.
You are also assuming the distribution of passengers is the same as the distribution of the population. Or the distribution of customers willing to pay certain prices is the same as the general population.
Airline seating is very complex as it's not a fixed price, changes constantly, and even varies from seat to seat in a single flight. Prices aren't fixed so just because you increase marginal cost does not mean reduce profit.
Lastly it also ignores completely the fact that even a shorter person would enjoy the increased room.
I didn't assume anything, ignore anything, assert anything, or even draw a conclusion about what should be done. Just spreading facts.
Call me Johnny Factseed.
Not to mention I was pointing out that your facts were irrelevant because the miss they point (Using population statistics to guide the design/engineering of an experience is doomed)
Mathematically we would expect height to be distributed in a somewhat gaussian fashion due to the central limit theorem. Therein lies its relevance. However, nobody is 70 feet tall (yet!), so it would be fair to argue that the tails are characterized differently by a gaussian distribution than by the "true" distribution for height (which would probably divert some of that probability mass from the far tails to the near tails).
Still, it is quite misplaced to talk about 50% of the passengers when the discussion is about substantial outliers.
Just giving you some information that will help you use more applicable axia in the future.
Signed,
Johnny Factseed
I wonder if you could start an airliner targeted at tall people and only have seats that can fit 7 ft tall human beings.
We really do need a lobby.
Or do you actually believe that the knees are on the seat level? My knees are considerably higher, since the seats are too low for me.
(Arguments saying it can't work because thats how flights used to be and ended up where we are ignore that those changes were gradual with all airlines competing together to erode their quality. A new market entry of what I describe would be sufficiently different to have marketing reasons to not compete on price, etc)
EDIT: Welp, apparently its been done and doesn't work or is simply less profitable. Still makes me sad there isn't a middle ground between sardines and sheiks.
Apparently, there are a few small all-business carriers in operation [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singapore_Airlines_Flight_21
Very expensive, but at least everything is business class.
One of the problems of angled seating is that it introduces additional lateral stresses on the body which have to be demonstrated during certification.
In a parking lot, the shape, combined with the mechanics of parking, means that it helps to angle things. Though, you do lose one parking spot or so in the process.
In a plane, the sides of the object (in this case the upright coffin sized space you fit into) are roughly the same, so angling will do little to help and is largely unneeded to "park" yourself. Ultimately though, airlines are unwilling to lose that one row if they did compensate for the morphing a reclined seat does for the shape of things.
The article seems to be based on the study discussed here.
https://twocents.lifehacker.com/your-reclining-airplane-seat...