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Comment by jghn | Hacker News Reader

I'd pay extra to keep the person in front of me from being able to recline.

You can carry cash onto the airline and if the person in front of you reclines you can offer them cash to not recline. Or auction the cash to swap seats with someone who has someone in front of them who will accept cash to not recline.

The solution to being picky about other people reclining is to pay for a better seat. (Front cabin or exit row.)

he just gave you another solution which might also work for a lower price.

> he just gave you another solution

It works at scale about as well as people slamming back when they recline. It’s not a bad idea, and I’d endorse recommending it. But it isn’t as reliable as paying for a better seat.

what do you do when the person in front of you takes the deal and reclines anyway? Sue to get your money back?

Pay by the hour.

Or dump your apple juice on their head and claim accident.

No longer patronize her seat unreclining business.

Just tell them you’ll pay half now and half after landing.

what if they never pay the other half?

No tip

The person in front of me slammed her seat back in a recent flight and it made me yelp in pain. I’m tall and my knees were nearly pressed against the seat before she pounced. I started bouncing my knees to try to get comfortable. The person’s kid turned and said “you’re shaking my mom’s seat.” “Yes. It’s mashing my legs.” “Could you stop?” “No. Tell her to straighten up.” “Oh.” She did, and I stopped.

I do get that she just wanted to relax a little. She wasn’t trying to be mean. But wow, how the awful design of that plane made her reasonable desire to rest in her seat physically painful for me.

> I started bouncing my knees to try to get comfortable

This is as obnoxious as slamming the seat backwards.

I apologize for not writhing in pain according to standard.

Both of you had opportunities to communicate and didn't. That's fine. Nobody thinks clearly when uncomfortable. But reflecting on what happened, it should be obvious that talking to the person would have not only solved the situation sooner but also more maturely than throwing a tantrum by kicking someone else's seat.

Dude. I literally cried out in pain and was writhing to find a way to get comfortable.

I don't recline my seat, partly out of respect for the person behind, but mostly out of not wanting to have to deal with someone with your kind of attitude.

It's not the person in front of you's fault that the little bit of comfort the feature built into the seat she bought offers her is inconvenient to you.

I think that’s pretty much what I said, right? She wasn’t a demon. It’s not her fault the seating was arranged so horribly. I wasn’t angry with her. And yet, the distance from the back of my seat to the reclining back of hers was shorter than the length of my legs, from rump to knee. It was physically impossible for me to put my legs together and I was physically in pain. I was annoyed with the airline, not the woman who just wanted to get a little more comfortable.

It's exactly what you said. You're not crazy :)

You're right, my bad.

I am five four as is my wife. I can’t imagine being tall and not paying for seats with more legroom.

How would you feel being charged extra for a seat that permits short people to be safely transported?

By the end of the year, my wife and I will have flown over a dozen times - mostly domestic and short flights. I never pay for the cheapest seats nor do I fly budget airlines.

Congratulations on your wealthy status. You do understand that not everyone can do that, as evidenced by the fact that airplanes have a very small number of extra-comfort seats compared to basic economy seating?

Not wealthy at all. We downsized from a big house in the burbs to a condo 1/3 the size in state tax free Florida, we have one relatively cheap car that was 2/3rd the median price of a new car in the US, and we churn credit cards for points and use a few other tricks.

> safely transported?

We’re talking about comfort, not safety. (I am struggling to find any reported injuries from reclining accidents.)

My knees regularly get agonizingly crushed from reclining seats, enough that I have screamed. At one point it was so bad I even bought a device that prevents the seat in front from reclining, until they got banned.

Also got a macbook pro screen crushed from a reclining seat once... nobody cared.

> My knees regularly get agonizingly crushed from reclining seats, enough that I have screamed

Was there injury? Was your ability to exit in an emergency impaired? If so, there might be a safety issue. Being in non-injurious pain is uncomfortable and annoying and it sucks, but it's not fairly characterised as a safety issue any more than getting a neck crick from a lack of lay-flat seating counts as a safety issue.

Focusing on this instead of the point (how would you feel if X happened to you instead) feels very corporate America.

We're talking about safety, not comfort! They can survive on low oxygen under the plane so put some seats down there!

> Focusing on this instead of the point (how would you feel if X happened to you instead)

I’m 6’. My partner is 6’ 7”. I’d prefer to not have to pay extra for more legroom. I’d also prefer to not pay for anything else in my life.

Conflating safety and comfort in the context of an airline is incredibly disingenuous. I’m as safe as I’m miserable flying middle seat economy. I’m also in that position because I preferred to spend my dollars on something else.

Comfort crosses over into safety when it changes the odds of DVTs in the legs etc.

> Comfort crosses over into safety when it changes the odds of DVTs

Do we have any evidence this varies based on reclining and leg room relative to height?

If so, you absolutely have a point, possibly legally under the ADA.

I’m 6’0”, just run of the mill tall, not basketball player stratospheric. The notion that someone within 1 standard deviation of the mean should pay extra not to be in pain is ridiculous.

You can't imagine that being tall doesn't automatically make people wealthy?

On the last flight I took, an Economy+ seat with more legroom, was over 250% more expensive. It came with no additional perks, just legroom.

Thank you! I was on a business trip. I could have paid an extra $500 out of pocket over the tickets the company paid for. I wasn’t asking to be super comfortable in the cheap seats. I just wanted to get from A to B without being hurt.

Flying is a privilege unless it’s an emergency. I pay for all sorts of conveniences when I fly. I alsopp think parents of small children shouldn’t be able to buy seats where they can’t choose their seats forcing others who did pay for the right to choose their seat to have to move.

there is such a thing as reasonable accommodation for reasonable body types. That being said, the enemy here is airlines, not other passengers. The thing that makes me angry is how well airlines have turned this discussion from 'we just destroyed your comfort and provide horrible service' to 'it is the other passengers that are terrible people and you should get angry at them'

Should they also rearrange seats so 600 pound people can fly or just keep making them pay for two seats? No the 600 pounds is not hyperbole

'reasonable' is the keyword here. I do not expect an airline to provide medical care on a flight but I do expect some level of accommodation for people with medical issues. We have crosswalks that acknowledge the blind but streets that are still far from perfectly accommodating for them. There is no 'perfect' but there is reasonable accommodation and there is a discussion what 'reasonable' is and what a 'reasonable' accommodation for extreme bodies are. I personally don't find it objectionable to require two seats to be purchased for someone that is that far away from average, but there is a discussion to be had for sure. For instance, how common is it? If it is pretty uncommon then just providing two seats, without extra cost, is probably the easiest thing for all parties involved since special cases are expensive. But now we are, again, playing the airline's games. 'blame the outlier', 'blame a passenger', 'blame security theater'. In the end they want us to blame everyone but them for the terrible service they provide. I have been stranded twice out of the last 5 times I flew because they didn't make their schedule. One of those times I had to sleep on the airport floor and had no compensation or even an 'I'm sorry' from the airline. Their bad, unprofessional and unacceptable level of service needs to end and the core of the problem is the airlines. Not the passengers.

Southwest has (had?) a policy that if you required two seats, you had to purchase them. But if the flight wasn’t full, they would be refunded one. But the only reason they could do that is because they didn’t have any reserve seating until recently

Alternatively we would all be paying extra legroom price for seats then though.

Your discomfort is not, in any way, her problem. Suck it up, dude. I’m sorry you are too tall for your budget.

I need to recline or else I have terrible back pain.

However, if someone asks me nicely I will switch seats with them or otherwise try to consider their happiness. So, ask nicely. Don’t thrash like a trapped chicken and hope to annoy people into submission.

> Your discomfort is not, in any way, her problem

Eh, there is a polite and impolite way to recline a seat. It’s fair to complain about incourteous fellow travellers.

No there isn't "a polite and impolite way to recline a seat."

All ways are polite. You are just making shit up.

Why do so many smart people think that correct behavior is whatever makes intuitive sense to themselves and everything else must be wrong? NOBODY HAS EVER CONVENED A SUMMIT ON RULES FOR RECLINING AIRLINE SEATS, DUDE. There is no council of elders. There's just us.

Either you're a pluralist, who understands that the world has lots of different kinds of people in it, that we don't all agree, and somehow we must get along without resorting to violence... or you're part of the why we aren't getting along.

As I said in my original comment. There are no rules. But there is empathy. Empathy is a gift. It's a choice. Thank you for choosing it. But it's not my right to demand it from you. My comfort is NOT your problem.

And it's so strange to be downvoted when I say that, because if my comfort is your problem, then you all should be upvoting me so that I will feel good about myself! Every downvote proves I'm right. (sort of)

> Your discomfort is not, in any way, her problem. Suck it up, dude. I’m sorry you are too tall for your budget.

This is the reason the majority of people have to suffer rules created for the lowest common denominator. Jesus Christ.

I don't know what this means. I hope it's something good.

Isn’t that what this is? A WestJet economy seat now comes with a guarantee that the person in front of you can’t recline.

Just pick a seat behind a non reclinable seat.

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