It’s the right of a passenger to recline their seat when they’re sitting in a seat that is designed to recline. Recline can be important for your back, especially with harder, less-padded seats than ever before. But there’s still etiquette here: try to avoid reclining your seat during meal times, only do it when you need it (don’t just recline by default), and consider giving warning to the person behind you if they’re working on a laptop.
There are a lot of things that are unpleasant as an airline passenger. One is how little legroom your ticket buys, though there are options to pay more money to get more space. There is a right way and a wrong way to take matters into your own hands if you’re frustrated by a reclining passenger:
- Right way: politely negotiate with the reclining passenger. It is their right, so figure out how important it is to you that they keep their seat upright and offer to pay them up to that amount.
- Wrong way: Vigilantism, like installing a ‘seat defender’ on the seat that blocks the person in front of you from reclining (airlines generally ban this product) or shoving the seat in front of you to torment the person doing the reclining.
Vigilantism is a recipe for conflict and that can lead to a plane diverting. You might get into a fight or even get arrested.
This so-called ‘hack’ is less violent that shoving the seat in front of you, but it’s still an aggression meant to get under the skin of the person reclining and can easily lead to escalation. What do you think you’re accomplishing by “turn[ing] on the air con above you at full blast and point[ing] it at their head”..?
@thelkshow The plane ride is so long when you get one of these people in front of you 🥱 #plane #reclinetheseat #annoyingpassengers ♬ Blicky – Fresh X Reckless
This is exactly what makes air travel so challenging. If you don’t like something, you get under the skin of someone trapped inside a metal tube hurtling 35,000 feet above the earth at speeds in excess of 500 miles. That never ends well.
