Posted on 09/04/2014 5:04:32 AM PDT by Kaslin
You may not be 100 percent sure what you think about Vladimir Putin's maneuvers in Ukraine, Burger King's tax inversion, the indictment of Texas Governor Rick Perry, or Scotland's independence referendum. But you know exactly where you come down on the Great Airline Reclining Seat Controversy, don't you?
Everyone has an opinion on the passenger in Row 12 who caused an uproar on a United flight from Newark to Denver when he used a plastic bracket called the "Knee Defender" to block the woman in front of him from reclining her seat. When a flight attendant told the man to remove the gadget — which United, like most airlines, prohibits — he refused. The infuriated woman in Row 11, reported the Associated Press, "then stood up, turned around, and threw a cup of water at him." Whereupon the plane was diverted to Chicago, and the two passengers were ejected.
Three days later, another passenger was booted from another flight because of another struggle over legroom. American Airlines diverted a Miami-to-Paris flight to Boston, where Edmond Alexandre was arrested on charges of "interfering with a flight crew" after fighting when the seat in front him was reclined.
Small wonder these stories have struck a nerve. You don't have to be a frequent flyer to know how cramped air travel has become, or how maddening — not to mention kneecap- and laptop-endangering — it can be when the already minuscule space between you and the seat-back in front of you suddenly shrinks further because a passenger one row up leans back without warning. Nor is it hard to understand the frustration of a passenger with an aching back or a need to sleep who presses the recline button, only to discover that the seat has been deliberately immobilized by a fellow traveler.
But how did the battle between knee defenders and recliners turn into an all-or-nothing clash of rights?
"I own the right to recline, and if my reclining bothers you, you can pay me to stop," asserts economics reporter Josh Barro in The Upshot, a New York Times politics and policy website. "If sitting behind my reclined seat was such misery .?.?. someone would have opened his wallet and paid me by now."
Conversely, the Times's international business editor, Damon Darlin, is just as adamant in defense of his right — not his wish or preference, mind you, but his right — to attach a disabling clamp to the seat in front of him.
"The real problem is undefined property rights over the same four or five inches of space," Darlin maintains. "The person with the recliner button holds an advantage. The Knee Defender reallocates the rights."
Au contraire, argues the Financial Times in an editorial. An airplane ticket "is a contract that guarantees very few things, but the right to recline your seat at cruising altitude is one of them."
A plane ticket, of course, guarantees no such thing. Just as a concert ticket doesn't guarantee the right to view the stage unobstructed by a tall person right in front of you. Just as a hotel room reservation doesn't guarantee the right not to be disturbed by sounds from guests in the adjacent room or the corridor.
You can't always get what you want, to coin a phrase. That's routinely true of public accommodations, where our experiences — travel, dining, lodging, entertainment — must be shared with other human beings, in all their not-always-congenial variety. It makes life worse for all of us when people become so obsessed with their own satisfaction that they convince themselves they have a guaranteed right to it. Common courtesy and self-control used to be esteemed as indispensable to a healthy society. But the more we rely on law and regulation to maintain social order, the less we seem to emphasize good character and values.
Most air travelers, most of the time, don't descend into rudeness and selfishness. But as the obnoxious "I-have-a-right" mindset grows ever more entrenched, clashes like the one involving the Knee Defender are apt to proliferate. Barro wants to be paid not to recline into the lap of Darlin, sitting behind him. Darlin claims the freedom to "reallocate" Barro's ability to move his seat. Compromise? Consideration? Thoughtfulness? Nothing doing. For some people, the right to be a jerk trumps all.
I don’t mind if the person in front of me reclines. But the seat back stops at my knees. Guaranteed.
I find the 5 degrees (or whatever it is) of recline to be more uncomfortable than sitting up straight. It’s a funny angle for my back. I wouldn’t mind if there was no recline at all.
I don’t use recline, and I don’t like it when people in front of me use it. However, the worst part is when they slam the seat into full recline without any warning. At least have the courtesy to go slow so that the person sitting in back has a chance to move items and/or reposition their knees, right?
I was always told that reclining one’s seat was bad etiquette. If the seat in front of me reclines into my face, I just can’t guarantee that I won’t be accidentally hitting its back with my knee from time to time.
Airline passengers are getting as rude on planes as they are everywhere else. No consideration to other passengers is given when they recline their seats, or when they bring all their worldly possessions in carryon luggage and hog the overhead space, and stick their butt in other people’s faces when stowing the oversized suitcase.
I have had my laptop broken by the person in front of me reclining their seat. I now require my employer to fly me business class where available. Bottom line: air travel these days sucks. Take the train for shorter hauls.
Fortunately I’m small (under 5’4” and I can sleep sitting straight up. Last flight my chair would not recline. I found that curious but didn’t care and went to sleep anyway, sitting bolt upright, for about 15 minutes which is all I needed. If I were flying to Europe or Hawaii I would be concerned. But that’s one of the reasons I don’t plan on doing either.
Reclining one’s seat is not bad etiquette, except during “meals.” I generally turn around and make sure I’m not going to crush someone’s laptop, though.
Amazing how many Freepers disdain recline and blame the person in front of them rather than the airlines.
If you want additional space for your knees, buttonhole the airlines to create it, IMO.
As long as people base their flying decisions solely on price airlines will continue to cram more and more people in.
Given how little space airlines leave between seat rows, putting your seat back in someone else’s face is not very considerate. I expect that behavior from liberals, who feel entitled, but not from us.
“It makes life worse for all of us when people become so obsessed with their own satisfaction that they convince themselves they have a guaranteed right to it. Common courtesy and self-control used to be esteemed as indispensable to a healthy society. But the more we rely on law and regulation to maintain social order, the less we seem to emphasize good character and values.”
Absolutely true. I see examples (more than one) of this every single day I go to the gym to workout. Add to the above the complete lack of will to insist that immigrants assimilate (let alone the issue of massive illegal alien importation) and we get the above attitudes.
My Father always said about these types of people “hooray for me, the hell with everyone else”. This is the way society is now - complete lack of common courtesy, no remorse whatsoever, extremely low morals and on and on...
Reclining is a problem?
I’m a rich capitalist pig and fly first class. Not at all sure what the issue is?
Exactly and what the airlines have done is create the clash of rights… the person in front has an implied ‘right’ to move their seat back since after all, they have been given a button that lets them recline. The person behind has an implied ‘right’ to reasonable space expectations and after all, that space comes with a tray that can be lowered for their personal use for the laptop.
The airlines caused this problem…it’s past time for them to actually solve it.
Your logic is flawed.
I fly hundreds of segments a year, including extensive international travel, and almost all of it in economy class. If you are in a seat which reclines, and you are able to recline it without crushing the guy behind you, then you should feel free to recline your seat. Standard protocol is to raise your seat during what passes for “mealtime” on flights.
This is true everywhere in the world, not just on US carriers.
AMEN!
It is EXTREMELY RUDE to shove your seat into the person behind you without taking any consideration for their discomfort.
I expect this from unthinking and rude liberals. I expect better from Conservatives and Christians.
Do unto others....
The worst of it is that whether they realize it or care or not, they are just begging to have every little thing in life be legislated. Like a lot of children-or serfs.
yes, my take on it has always been the few rude and uncaring people ruin everything for the rest of us. Now it seems that the “rest of us” are outnumbered.
It’s easy to start feeling defeated and wonder if one should just say the hell with it and join the ever growing crowd of miscreants.
There are two sides to that coin. Your opinion is just as easily neither conservative or Christian.
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