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Comment by schwartzworld | Hacker News Reader

I'm 6'6". Planes have basically always been torture chambers, and it has gotten noticeably worse over the years. I'm tall enough to where the person in front of me is automatically unable to recline their seat because my femurs get in the way. People tend to react to the news that they can't recline in one or more of three ways:

- Repeatedly and aggressively attempt to recline hoping that I will just stop being in the way. Quite painful for me.

- Getting up and yelling at me

- Waiting for me to go to the bathroom and then just leaning back anyway.

There was a time you could get an exit row or bulkhead if a flight attendant took pity on you, but those days are gone. Those seats are considered "premium" and cost money. It's a tax on tall people. I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action suit by now.

Just looking at those double decker seats makes my kneecaps hurt. I can't wait to have someone's ass in my face for an entire flight.

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Seats on airplanes should not be abled to recline. The impact for the passenger behind you is always negative.

I obviously feel the same way, but this is an extremely controversial topic apparently. The last time I posted this opinion, I got bombarded with angry 'I paid for the feature so I'm using it' replies.

Just set a mild recline to all seats and lock it in. Making them adjustable is just asking for conflict.

That is basically exactly what they do. The seats have to come up more vertical for safety for take off and landing. Other then that you can set the seat to a very mild recline position. There is only like what 1 maybe 2 inches of adjustment.

The adjustment is still enough to cause conflict - evidenced by it being discussed here.

The design of an enclosed space should be to minimise conflict. The fact that people will be entitled over either "right to recline" or "personal space" is just a point for unecessary conflict.

Keep it simple, keep it same for all.

Ditto, the extra 1 inch or so makes no difference to me. It reminds me of the close door button on elevators, maybe it has a placebo effect and provides some psychological comfort even though it does practically nothing.

I agree, but I also think it translates to a psychological discomfort for the passenger behind.

> I'm surprised there hasn't been a class action suit by now.

Height isn’t a protected characterisric in general, and being tall isn’t recognized as an ADA-covered disability, so what would the basis of a lawsuit be?

Sure, its private discrimination, but on a completely legal basis.

> being tall isn’t recognized as an ADA-covered disability

There is no formal "whitelist" of "ADA-covered disabilities".

https://askjan.org/topics/Americans-with-Disabilities-Act-Am...

According to this, height is only not a factor if considered within the "normal" range. The fact that the distance between seats is slightly smaller than my femurs would seem to signify that the airline don't consider my height to be within the normal range, and I'm at the low-end of "really tall".

If we can agree that being above a certain height could be considered an impairment according to the ADA under certain circumstances, then consider that the ADA protects someone who has a "a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities".

Besides the immediate physical discomfort, sitting in cramped spaces raises your risk of deep vein thrombosis while flying. Tall people are already more prone to DVT, and the spaces are even more cramped for us.

Tall people have been proven to benefit in all areas of life. You get paid more, better jobs, treated better, more sex.

You do not want an act which stops height discrimination. You are the massa in this situation.

Same basically everything. I try to be a good patron and buy an emergency exit seat or a front of section seat, but those are always the first to go.

And even purchasing well ahead of time, I've been rebooked/reshuffled so many times and the airlines just don't care.

I wish everyone just knew how miserable it is before getting angry about not being able to recline. It's basically torture.

I don't know what the solution is. I would recommend just having a few 'tall person' seats and charging more, but people will just snatch those up the same.

we trade a little life expectancy and comfort in airplanes but outside of that there’s a lot of upside so to speak

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