Had my knees banged more than once by folks in front hitting the recline button and then slamming the seat back.
I am rather tall for a woman, 5’7” and rather long legged and sadly not so “trim” as I used to be, plus I have back problems.
When I flew to the UK last year, my first Trans-Atlantic flight, on US Airways, an Airbus, the seats were cramped but not as much as I was expecting in coach. Personally because of my back issues it is actually more comfortable for me to sit upright, but on such a long flight it might have been nice to recline, if even just a little bit to catch a few winks since once I landed in Manchester, I had a 3 hour + train ride to Hull and by the time I checked into my hotel, had up for over 24 hours.
But I noticed that the persons seated behind me, Brits coming home from a vacation trip to the US were traveling with a baby/toddler and the mom and dad were taking turns holding him as he was young enough not to have his own seat. And I have to say the baby was pretty well behaved although I did feel him kick the back of my seat a few times but it wasn’t excessive and each time he did, I heard a “So sorry mate” coming from behind me. I said, “It’s OK – babies will do what babies do”.
I would have been an inconsiderate idiot IMO to recline my seat back on this couple and their baby, so I didn’t.
The worst was when baby crapped in his diaper and there was a bit of a smell but then the dad very quickly whisked him off to the lavatory to change his “nappy” and clean him up, saying to each passenger he passed along the way, “So sorry, so sorry.”
There were two older American women seated in front of me and they reclined, but only after the flight attendants had turned down the lights and long after meal service and they didn’t “slam” the seat back and even after they did so, asked if I was “OK back there”, so while it cramped me a bit more, it was not anything that I found so uncomfortable that I felt the need to be a jerk about it so I said, “I’m OK”. The worst thing was I had re-adjust my video monitor as I was watching a movie.
On my return flight I was seated next to a woman from the UK who was traveling with her two teenage daughters who were on their way to Florida – going to Disney and then on to Miami Beach. Since I get preferred seating through our corporate travel agent, I had an aisle seat on the left side of the plane (the two seat section). The woman had the window seat but her daughters were seated in the center seats across the aisle. Before we took off and even though, being a bit claustrophobic and on the heavy side and preferring the aisle seat, I asked the woman if she wanted to change seats with me so she could be seated closer to her daughters. She thanked me profusely and we switched. During the flight when she got up to go to the lavatory, I told her, “I think I will go now too, that way I won’t have to make you get up or climb over you later.” She again thanked me for being so kind and considerate and we chatted at great length, quite enjoyably so, and as several times when I had to shift positions in my seat because of my back discomfort, she never complained.
Anyway whatever happened to courtesy?
Exactly. Just a little bit of common courtesy; a few “please’s”, “thank you’s”, “would you mind if I” and “excuse me’s”, and perhaps a “I know you can recline your seat and that it makes you more comfortable, but in doing so, I hits my knees and is quite painful for me, so would you mind terribly if I asked you to put your seat back up?”
No. For too many people now days being a jerk when they feel that their “personal space” has been invaded, rather than politely explaining it and politely asking for some courtesy, fly off the bat and act like jerks and causing the other person to react in kind.
Talking about your flight reminds me of a flight I was on a few years ago. I was seated at the window next to an enormously fat woman. She should have been asked to buy 2 tickets. She managed to wedge herself into her seat and then she VERY POLITELY tuned to me and said “ I think WE will be more comfortable if WE raise this arm rest”. I told her “NO WE won’t”.
I still had to lean away from her because her body poured over the arm rest and took part of my seat anyway. I remember having back pain from being forced to lean to the right for 4 hours. Air travel is not much fun.
I used to be 5’7 but have shrunk down to 5’6 and I can feel that when I try to reach high shelves.
See courtesy goes along way if everyone uses it