On Saturday, a passenger sitting in extra legroom coach (‘Economy Plus’) on the early morning United Arlines flight 1377 from Denver to Chicago repeatedly slammed his body and the seatback every few minutes for roughly two hours. The person behind him was reportedly 6’7”, and the the man behind appeared “completely unbothered.” The angry passenger apparently never just turned around and said what the problem was.
Clearly, though, they wanted more recline than the man’s height allowed, or were bothered by their knee contact with the back of their seat. So they kept un-reclining and re-reclining repeatedly. Hard. In a retaliatory manner.
A flight attendant asked the 6’7” passenger if he was okay. He said yes. And no further action was taken.
Man threw a tantrum on our 6am flight
by
u/there_was_a_mollusk in
unitedairlines
This behavior is completely unacceptable. It’s childish, disruptive, and something the flight attendant should have stopped.
“Like, what the hell am I supposed to do, become shorter?”
“Have you not seen Gattaca?”“Should have asked the FA if they had any of the plastic pilot wings to give him, since he’s clearly acting like a child.”
“Maybe a coloring book could’ve calmed him down.”
“He’d eat the crayons.”“Every airliner needs a brig for douchebags like this.”
“A brig would be a reward since it would probably be more comfortable than sitting in economy on a full flight.”
There are a couple of takes here, though, that I don’t quite agree with.
- Reclining is rude, and there’s an unwritten rule against it. Reclining is anti-social because it creates discomfort for someone behind you for very little gain – “only recline if sleeping,” “never recline on daytime flights,” “people who recline are like people who don’t return shopping carts.” The seat reclines and that’s at the discretion of the passenger in the seat, although it’s polite to do it slowly and only when needed (and it can be needed to distribute weight especially on longer flights.
- Neither passenger is the problem, the airline is. Blame the legroom, though this is already economy plus. Truthfully, first class isn’t much more spacious. In that circumstance I’m more a fan of seats with articulating recline (‘cradle’).
The flight attendant response was too passive. Asking the tall passenger “are you okay?” is not the same as managing the cabin. Visible, repeated, shaking of rows should mean the flight attendant tells the passenger to stop, documents it, and warns that continued behavior can have consequences. Disruptive or violent behavior can lead to fines, law enforcement referral and an airline ban.
@George Romey — Before you (or others) go there… You know why this couldn’t happen even on Spirit… no recline. Bah!
I agree with both of the takes with which you disagree. Reclining is a way to steal space from the person behind you. At the very least, it would be more polite to say to the person behind, “I am about to recline my seat, could you please arrange yourself and all carry-on items appropriately?”
If pitch were a minimum of 34″ in all seats, I doubt there would be so many recline fights. Needless to say, the passenger described as un-reclining and re-reclining his seat was being a real jerk. I would hope the airline would have the courage to ban him over such antisocial behaviour.
@Raphael Solomon — So, a mix of corporate greed (reduced legroom to increase profits, etc.) and individual misbehavior (a-holes gonna a-hole).
@Raphael Solomon – 1) this is economy plus so your suggestion of minimum 34 inch pitch did not solve the issue 2) I identify the politeness of how to handle so this is not a disagreement actually!
I love how everyone blames the airline and in the same breath want cheaper airfares. You do know they can’t just add an extra 5 feet to the tube of the aircraft, right? So they install a number of seats to make a flight profitable. I mean they could just have one seat for your highness but that makes the airfare $50,000. So if you want cheaper fares, suck it up!
A rewrite: A hostile man was seated on the airplane and repeatedly tried to engage the man behind him over two hours by slamming his seat back. The man behind him ignored him.
“because it creates discomfort for someone behind you for very little gain”
I am not a medical professional, but everything I have read suggests that it is better for your back to recline. I don’t blame the airlines for narrow pitch. I blame the pax. On nearly every plane, and certainly almost always on longer flights where recline is important, there exists a Y+ section which is priced historically (adjusted for inflation) less than “golden era” coach. So, you can buy a fair-priced Y+ seat, or slum it and get 28″ of pitch. If nobody bought those (or, at least Y+ sold out while Y remained near empty), guess what the airlines would do? Yep, huge Y+ sections or not Y at all. But, no, price-driven flyers buy Y and BE and shun Y+. AA is the perfect example, being forced to eliminate a higher pitch throughout Y, because nobody would pay them for it.
I have a new simple stance, if you buy Y or BE when Y+ is available, I will ignore any space-related complaint you have. I probably will laughters at you, just like I’d laugh at a Greyhound pax who complains there trip took 12 hours, when those on an airplane did it under 90 minutes.
Flights for the delinquent should be suspended for 180 days on all usa carriers.