Airline Etiquette
Posted on June 1st, 2011 in Uncategorized | 16 Comments »
It’s a subject I’m quite passionate about, as those who travel with me will attest, and as I do in all other areas of modern American life, I lament the decline of manners.
One of my oldest friends, for example, has responded to the absence of in-flight meals by cooking and bringing with him a tub of jambalaya on every flight.
When I point out that this is a food with a strong odor, not particularly pleasant for people not eating it and certainly not what you want lingering on your clothes for a long flight, he responds that everyone else is bringing their Big Macs. Naturally I point out that this food arms race does no one good and that two wrongs don’t make a right and that besides, do you want to lower yourself to the level of people eating Big Macs?
Inevitably, my friend is also a seat recliner. His argument: When a plane takes off, everyone should recline, and that way, everyone is equally not inconvenienced (or, in my opinion, equally inconvenienced).
(He also steals music from the Internet, but that’s another issue.)
I’m a good deal taller than my friend, and have strong feelings on this issue. In my opinion, people should only recline their seats modestly, and preferably only after asking the permission of the person behind him or her.
You can imagine how often that happens.
Generally, of course, people just mindlessly recline their seats all the way into my knees, which makes it virtually impossible for me to move, stand up, stretch, read a book, use a computer, breathe deeply and so on.
And—I’m not proud of this, I’ll admit—I will respond by either shoving their seat back upright or (more often) blocking its descent with my bent legs. People either think their seat is defective, or they take the hint.
All of which is a long way to note that, on a flight from Dulles Airport to Ghana the other day, someone reclined so aggressively that the passenger behind him slapped him on the head.
Which prompts mixed feelings (I decry the violence while sympathizing with the impulse) in me.
It also prompted the jet pilot, accompanied by two fighter jets as an escort, to return to Dulles and not take off again till the next morning. Apparently terrorists have created such incidents as a distraction.
Reporting on the incident, the Washington Post rightly refers to seat reclining as “a typical airplane annoyance.”
Wouldn’t America’s airlines, generally the worst of the First World, do well by instructing people on points of airline etiquette? It would help them avoid such costly incidents.
It would also have discouraged the people I once saw headed toward their seats while toting a large Domino’s pizza.
After all, the airlines are the ones who pack passengers in so tightly that a reclined seat becomes a serious space invasion…..
16 Responses
6/1/2024 12:47 pm
I agree totally.
Also, while you are dealing with indignities, would you please take on Ben Affleck’s miserable Boston mob flick, “The Town.” I’d rather have a colonoscopy than watch that film again. I know Ben is an easy target, but hey, you deserve a few layups.
6/1/2024 2:39 pm
I think you’re mistaking the list of things that annoy you with etiquette. Your sitting there complaining about “the decline of manners” but you’re willing to forcefully shove someone’s seat back up instead of asking them politely not to recline. Nevermind the discomfort of the person in front of you, as long as you’re nice and cozy, right? If you’re too tall to fit in a normal seat, pay more attention to the seat you pick. Sit in an exit or bulkhead row. If you really want to go after it, start lobbying the airlines. Don’t sit their and pretend that something that annoys you personally is a universal rule of etiquette.
6/2/2024 2:38 am
As the friend of Rich’s who is called out in this post I only have a couple of things to say. First of all….eat whatever you want on a flight that doesn’t serve food.
As for reclining…my view is that the the onus is on the person who is being inconvenienced to raise the issue with his/her seatmates. I have the absolute right to fully recline. I paid for that right with my coach ticket. If you want me not to fully recline, then the onus is on you to ask me to give up something that I have fully paid for. I will do so and only if you ask me nicely.
6/2/2024 7:24 am
I agree. It doesn’t bother me at all when someone reclines. And if I recline, my intention wouldn’t be to inconvenience the person behind me. It wouldn’t even occur to me that it might be a problem, because it bothers me none. It seems unnecessarily aggressive to hit a seat when reclining is a benign act.
6/2/2024 1:49 pm
Ah, FF, I was wondering who would notice the obvious tension between my objection and my response. It’s true, I could handle things more gracefully. On the other hand, there’s a degree to which shoving the seat back or keeping it from reclining is simply a matter of self-defense; my knees can attest to that. And yet I admit that part of me gives up a bit in this situation; I assume that someone who simply reclines their seat all the way back has such bad manners, prevailing upon them politely is likely to be useless, and so I resort to my generally greater size and strength. I’m not proud of it, but there you are.
Regarding the purchase (for that’s what it is) of alternate seats (bulkead, exit row), I do that when they’re available. Often they’re not. But really, why should someone else’s rudeness force me to spend more? By the same principle, there might well be forms of rudeness that bother you more than they do me, yet I would never say to you, “Suck it up or buy a business class ticket.”
As to Miami’s comment, I suppose this pertains to the way one goes through life; whether one tries generally not to inconvenience, or whether one believes that one can do anything and, if it results in inconvenience to others, the “onus” is on them to petition for redress. (I.e., I will play my car stereo as loud as I want while I drive through your neighborhood, and if it bothers you, call the cops.) Why should you agree to compromise only if they ask you “nicely” when your original act of reclining was not particularly nice? You’re the one who has altered the delicate balance of physical separation that exists on crowded planes. I have seen your laptop, and I can only imagine how that fares when you’re watching a movie and someone reclines all the way.
As to the “right” to recline that you acquire when you bought your coach ticket-well, that principle could have numerous other applications. Do you have the right to play a computer game with the sound on? Change your baby’s diaper without leaving your seat? Get obnoxiously drunk? Send email on your Blackberry while the plane is taking off? The right to stand up in your seat by grabbing the back of my seat and pulling? Or—my favorite—the right to urinate into the adult diaper you’re wearing because you’re so fat you can’t fit into the bathroom, as someone on a packed flight once did next to me?
In any event, it’s not obvious to me that you have the right to recline into someone else’s space any more than they have the right to preserve intact the space in front of their seat.
Nor is this universal right to recline obvious. Perhaps the airlines only intend you to recline when no one else is behind you; or when it’s a night flight and everyone is sleeping; or when you’ve courteously asked the person behind you if they don’t mind if you come back a little. It’s a gray area; your assumption is that your right to recline trumps someone else’s right not to have you crush their legs.
So the best solution is really to ask beforehand.
2nd Anon, reclining into someone else’s space is not a “benign act”; it’s aggressive. It’s no different than standing too close to someone while you’re talking to them or sitting too close to someone on a couch. Granted, these are subjective measures, but they are real phenomena. I’m just curious-how tall are you? It’s really never occurred to you that reclining bothers a lot of folks who travel?
1st Anon, I kind of liked The Town. Blake Lively was great!
6/2/2024 8:33 pm
Nope, it never occured to me until now. Maybe you should separate carelessness or even just not noticing the very tall man behind you and agressive behavior. If someone does not notice that a huge man is crammed behind them (I never turn around and peek at the fellow behind me. That would seem odd), then reclining would just seem fine. I wouldn’t assume every recliner is trying to get on your nerves. Maybe someone is just tired and wants to nap.
6/2/2024 8:38 pm
And indeed I am much much shorter than you. 5′ 5″. So I fit into everything.
6/3/2024 9:12 am
2nd Anon, there is a thin and sometimes nonexistent line between carelessness and rudeness. If you slam a door in someone’s face, or cut in front of someone in a line—even if that wasn’t your intention—it’s still rude. Not nearly as rude as if you meant to, but still rude.
6/3/2024 9:14 am
Also, 2nd Anon, here’s another way for you to be conscious on planes of those of us taller than you: We’re the people who stow and retrieve your carry-on luggage in/from the overhead bins.
6/3/2024 10:00 am
That’s nice you do that. Not everyone does. I can’t even remember the last time someone did that for me.
6/3/2024 10:10 am
I think my point is that careless rudeness does not warrant intentional rudeness back. There is a better and more gentle way to get your point across without being aggressive.
Once I coughed in a line without covering my mouth because I had packages in my hand. It was an unattractive deep cough. And the woman ahead of took me to task for not covering my mouth. Indeed I should have put my packages down and done so. I was sick and not quite thinking. But my transgression did not give her permission to scream at me like that for several minutes and follow me. It was inappropriate on both parts. And she looked by far the worst of the two of us. So that’s my point.
6/3/2024 10:10 am
Of course! Least I can do.
6/3/2024 10:11 am
And you make a good point on careless rudeness…it will be considered!
6/3/2024 11:23 am
Thank you!
6/3/2024 11:54 am
You’re welcome. And thank you for your thoughtful comments.
6/4/2024 3:34 pm
I think the analogies you use in your response to my comment are not on point and I agree with you that there is no point in being thoughtless and rude (as most of the actions you point out are). But I don’t think eating what you wish to eat in the seat you paid for when the airlines no longer provide food is being thoughtless and rude. It is a quick meal and if your nose is so sensitive that some simple ethic food eaten in about 10 minutes of 5 hour flight offends you…sorry, get over it.
As for reclining your seat, a much better analogy is what happens in a play or a concert when seated behind someone taller than you. Being tall Rich has it’s benefits and it’s drawbacks (as anyone who has ever had his shot blocked in a game of basketball can attest). Do I have the right to make you slouch during the show or switch seats with me. Of course not…it is ridiculous. The same applies on the airline. I can ask you to help accommodate me in the theater…you can say yes or no. You can ask me to help accommodate you in an airplane…I can say yes or no. Is the onus on you to see who is sitting behind you in the theater and slouch if that person is short…of course not. Is the onus on me to see who is behind me before I recline my seat. Similarly, of course not.