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Comment by totalZero | Hacker News Reader

I firmly believe that if your seat reclines, you are totally entitled to use the full extent of that recline.

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.

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I think you're right to a point but there is a thing called etiquette. And we should respect that and not infringe on another person's enjoyment when inappropriate to do so.

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.

No recline when food is being served or when otherwise instructed by the crew, full recline the rest of the time. None of this 20% nonsense. But I'm biased because I have a lower back problem, and I need all the recline I can get in economy on longer flights.

you having to work on an airplane is your problem. if you HAVE to work on an airplane, ensure you can do so by getting a business class seat or better. by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

There's such little etiquette in airports and airplanes that it's a good opportunity to vent a little rage at everyone else. I think it's healthy. Like Purge Day in that movie "The Purge".

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.

Alternatively, the amount of stress and tension amongst the collective in airports and airplanes is such that I think it's a great opportunity to practice being more compassionate and human with each other, versus "venting rage at everyone else" - to let someone else go first in line, to clean up after yourself and maybe the past couple of other people who used the airplane lavatory before you, to take a couple of breaths and slow down before ripping into the airline counter agent for some real major or minor inconvenience.

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.

From the article, "The accepted notion is that such territory belongs to the person seated in front." Applying this convention/expectation along with our definition, etiquette indicates that the leaner may continue to lean back.

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've been on US domestic flights in which the seats were so close together that the person reclining had their face below mine, in my lap. I would prefer to agree with you that if the seat reclines you should be able to use it, but the reality of what the airlines have done to pack in more people makes it physically painful for other passengers when you do. The airlines have done an excellent job turning us all against each other, when this problem is of their making, out of pure greed.

Yup. I was thinking the same thing. They could easily remove 2-3 rows of seating, giving everyone extra room. It really doesn't have to be much room, even 2 inches makes a huge different with the way they have designed planes. It's the same nonsense on buses. I commute via bus every day and I'm dumbfounded that while the bus is pretty much never full the bus company doesn't remove 1-2 rows to free up leg room and reclining room for everyone.

You might be a youngin ... these cramped seats are a modern phenomenon. Did you know air travel was a highly regulated thing? Airlines squeezed every drop of efficiency they could post 9-11 ... they did it and no one complained because people wanted to support them (patriotic reasons and general decency). The airlines took it too far with all these charges, cramped seats, etc. They also implemented dynamic pricing and demand management which I think is a great evil as a consumer.

I never recline (unless there is an empty seat behind me) and firmly believe people who do are inconsiderate humans. Airline seats have shrunk to the point that people are wondering about medical issues due to restricted space.

I only fly first/business due to my height, and this is true of most passengers in those sections. Very rarely does anyone recline, and I think it has something to do with type of traveller.

Same here. In fact, "inconsiderate humans" only brushes the surface of what I consider those people to be.

Do you at least give some warning?

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 have had bruised knees from this as well, but what's even more irksome is when they do this and slam into my expensive laptop. And then sit in the seat in front of me murmuring about how it is their right to recline their seat.

I just lift my legs a little which completely blocks them from reclining because at that point my knees are pressed into the seat when it's fully upright. They literally can't recline because there's no room to do so. Airlines have reached the point where in a lot of cases there is no room between the seats when they're fully upright, unless the seat behind the passenger is empty it physically can't recline.

I'm 6'5" and had to be relocated on a recent Air Canada flight because the person in front of me reclined and I literally could not move.

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.

Seats configuration depends on air company, not the plane. Check seatguru.com before buying tickets, or better buy/upgrade to exit row seats.

good tip, thanks

Politeness and consideration for the people with which one shares space should override the "entitlement" of a few inches of space.

It's pretty common airline ethiquette to put your seat upright when the food is being distributed and people are eating.

Sitting in a Google talk once, the lecturer said "If your policy doesn't exist in code, it doesn't exist." I'd like to think that analogy applies in social situations as well. It'd be nice if people would exhibit kindness and etiquette in social situations, but in the case of airlines, better to enforce it through mechanical design [+].

[+] 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

The airline does enforce it. While people are eating, they tell you to keep the seat up.

This is not true for the USA companies. Where a policy has been stated regarding recline, that policy has been "there is no policy" and "we get involved only if passenger safety becomes an issue."

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.

I'm not sure a complex mechanical device is a requirement. The airlines could mention before takeoff that it's proper etiquette to not fully recline your seat until after the meal waste has been collected and to not recline during service. This doesn't physically stop someone from reclining but it certainly sets a social expectation of them and empowers a flight attendant to respectfully ask the patron to decline their seat when it is inappropriately reclined.

I agree. Considering that people who fly are often travelers from dissimilar home cultures, with some going airborne for the very first time, if there is an expectation of refraining from a seemingly permitted behavior, that expectation ought to be made clear.

There’s all kinds of ediquettes and social contracts that exist without being technically enforced upon people. It’s not lord of the flies. People are capable of being okay to each other.

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.

The thing is that by depending only on social etiquette, then you're giving disproportionate power to those who don't care or those who entitle themselves at the expense of those who are considerate.

That's not the behavior I think society should reward.

Laws and rules will never be adequate on their own. In my opinion, in the human realm, what is written down is only a shadow of what is needed for us to get along. The rest, the "unwritten rules" are what actually keep everything functioning.

If people are awake, sure. However, when flying, sleeping seems like a more basic need than eating, and one that should get higher priority. I think if someone is sleeping when they hand out the food, they should not be woken up in order to straighten their seat.

(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.)

Then the only reason I have been polite is because I was hungry.

I'm in agreement that you are entitled to use the full recline. One is also entitled to cough and/or sneeze throughout the flight over top of your reclined head, as they are also entitled to accidentally bump your seat many times while fumbling to access their luggage and other personal items. I find myself exercising the latter entitlements with a very strong correlation to those exercising the former.

I sometimes feel that people go out of their way to take an extreme position on seat reclining (I also browse aviation forums). As your FA pointed out, it affects people in different situations. I've actually seen FAs asking people to put the seat up during meals many times.

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.

If I'm spending more than six hours on a flight, I expect the person in front of me to want to recline. Seats are so constrained these days that I expect that people will stretch out at their convenience. The issue isn't concern for others, it's whether that concern extends forward to the seat ahead, or whether it extends backwards to the seat behind.

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.

I firmly believe that if your seat reclines, you are totally entitled to use the full extent of that recline.

Even if the person behind you is made much less comfortable??

Seat up when person behind is eating is normal, every airline steward I've flown on tells the person in front to do when meals are served for ~20mins, no biggie, a lot of airlines will make your blacklist by the sounds of up. But don't mistake me for someone who doesn't get your first point, the entitlement attitude of the laptop hipsters who think they purchased a coworker space 35000ft in the air makes me a laugh, especially the jerks that submit articles to NY times with subtitles 'its never okay to recline in economy', buy business if you need/desire to work otherwise my sleep is more important imo and that recline button is mine.

I'm not working, I'm trying to sit without too much pain.

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 guess I'm not normal. I wonder why they added that button in such case?

They added it (a) before the seat distance was that low and (b) for use in cases where you don't hurt your neighbor.

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.

Neither (a) or (b) is true, flying between Europe and Asia we pretty much get all the new planes from FinnAir A350s, to completely refurbed 777 (with brand new slimline seats as part of the 10 across densitification rollouts), to dreamliner 787s on Qatar, Oman and Norweigan (some are a few years old but many recently delivered), plus new smelling A321neos regionally. Occasionally we see an old A380 after a refurb too. All seats have the recline button. Never heard the hurt your neighbor argument - but I can't imagine them allowing you to fly if it going be mandated seat in front is upright to prevent medical injury - that would be a flight risk in the event of evacuation. You should take these arguments to FAA and airline though if you're serious rather than some unwritten code of conduct you expect the guy in front to follow when the person in front of him probably won't.

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

Lets turn it around. If I have my kid on the seat behind you (paid full price for kids over 2 .. they can do what they want) and they kick your seat for the entire duration of the flight, you should have bought your seat and the one behind you if YOU did not want to be in that situation :)

And if you recline I will politely ask you to put it back, because it hurts. And if you decline I will kick your seat arythmically until either you do or the cabin crew stops your nonsense.

And what happens if the person in front of the person in front has reclined, he has worst of both worlds, and now it's late, cabin lights are off, and the person has been on another flight for 12hrs prior to connecting. When you also recline you slide you legs under the seat in front, perhaps this can mitigate the pain? Is it pain or just more uncomfortable? What height are you I'm 179cm I managed, and I recline, and I dont have a problem when the person in front reclines. My friend is 190cm and he has no problem, although of course he'd rather people didn't recline. Any time someone has complained about the person in front reclining the cabin crew have always explained it is in there right to do so?

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.

Sure, until your seat hits my knees. Have had people repeatedly slam their seat against my knees without looking back to see what is blocking it.

That is very typical of Lufthansa. (The FA barking at the passengers about this)

Cathay Pacific also asks for people to put their seat up during the meal time. However they're incredibly polite about it.

Yeah... I wouldn't have a problem with a polite request. I thought the FA was totally out of line, certainly by American standards. I had been traveling for about 55 hours by that time, on my way to Italy from a small fishing village in South America, so I was exhausted and didn't really appreciate the rudeness. I figured it was a Lufthansa thing and now I stay away from them.

I haven't had the pleasure of flying Cathay Pacific yet, but I hear it's nice.

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