A 26 year old man relays the story of sitting in a middle seat on a six hour Spirit Airlines flight, sandwiched between two women.
He describes himself as tall, and says his knees always “dig into” the seat back in front of him – and that’s with the more generous seating on a ‘regular’ airline. And after encroaching on one woman’s space so badly she asked for a flight attendant’s help, he snooped on her phone to find out what she was saying about him.
He went online to ask whether he’s a jerk for, he says, ‘finding’ that his knee was “inching to the side” into the personal space. of the woman at the window seat Yes, he ‘discovered’ his knee was doing this – all on its own – without any involvement on his part.
[H]alf an hour after takeoff, I found my left knee inching to the side for the sweet relief of open space — specifically, the no-man’s-land in between seats, level with the shared armrest.
…I wasn’t paying attention to my knee the entire time. I’ll concede it’s possible that at some point I was occupying space that rightfully belonged to my window seat neighbor.
After two hours the woman couldn’t take it anymore and asked a flight attendant to keep his leg in its own seat space (well, she dropped a couple of F-bombs in that sentence, apparently). All the crewmember did was ‘go away’ but he felt embarrassed and retracted his leg. He tried to apologize, but felt she was being a jerk by ignoring him.
Unbelievably, the woman in the aisle offered that he could use some of her space before going to sleep. But he continued to stew.
- He felt the window seat woman should have confronted him, rather than involving a flight attendant. There was no reason to escalate.
- And since she’d been typing into her phone after the confrontation, he “started sneaking peeks” at what she was writing. He “wanted answers.”
The passenger spent three hours “TikToks about shaming obese people” and texting a friend about him.
AITA for manspreading on a plane?
by u/Dr_Chekhov in AmItheAsshole
Spirit Airlines 28-inch pitch (the distance from seat back to seat back) isn’t made for people with long legs. It’s two inches less than standard American, United and Delta legroom, and four inches less than on many Southwest Airlines aircraft.
If you must fly Spirit, know what you are buying. And if you are tall, pay extra for the ‘Big Front Seat’. You’re buying a product that is going to make you uncomfortable otherwise, and that doesn’t give you the right to make someone else even more uncomfortable, encroaching on their limited space.
And expecting a woman to confront a tall man, when she’s pinned between him and the wall of an aircraft, without the assistance of cabin crew seems a bit rich. But not as rich as doubling down on the invasion of her personal space by looking over her shoulder at her phone screen. And somehow she’s being unreasonable for seeking comfort from a friend that she’s stuck next to him?
There are situations, many, in which there is not a single a-hole to blame, but sometimes multiple.
Creepy dude must be a Florida man with the pitiful attempts at victim shaming.
This is obviously a one-sided tale, but this jerk unknowingly reveals himself toward the end of it. Even if you take him at his word that he unknowingly encroached on her space and she was rude by escalating to the FA, the aisle seat woman gave him an out. At that point, after he’d apologized once, he could move his knees with a mind of their own away from her and that would be the end of it. But he admit to us that he kept pestering her for a conversation after she’s already ignored him and then spies on her for *three hours*.
I think it’s fairly obvious that there was a lot more going on before she called the FA, but he’s leaving that out because it doesn’t fit his self-serving narrative. And whatever it was, it likely justified her ire.
There are no winners in a game of losers.
While I am retired airline pilot with lifetime pass privileges, this is a fine example of why I drive or buy F/J tickets (plus the thought of or ‘airport appreciation” time while waiting for an empty seat nauseates me). If I can figure out how to use my AA,AL, DL miles to upgrade a Premium Economy ticket, I may opt for that. The companies don’t seem anxious to share that information on their websites.
Sounds like he should have taken a different airline as Spirit is for small people (I take JetBlue). Or bought a second seat (I’ve done that multiple times) and then hoped that Spirit didn’t take it back. That being said, it sounds like he and the woman in the window seat were made for each other. Both sound passive–aggressive. If she wanted to hide the phone display from him, she could have done it. He could have done something that helps his knees, though. If there is a seatback pocket filled with airline advertising trash at knee level, take the trash out of it and put it on the floor. That definitely helps. I’ve done it for years. I hope he got out a lot of times to stretch his legs.
I’ve noticed that there seems to be a lot more of “screen peeking” at the phones of others going on now than 10 years ago. In large part it is probably related to the photos, videos and large font headlines being displayed on the screens being more “tantalizing”. And given how young women tend to spend a lot of time checking out other young women on Instagram, TikTok, etc being “fashionable”, “sexy” or whatever, it shouldn’t be a surprise that others hooked to the same sites have a roaming eye and are more interested in checking out the “bikini babes” being checked out by others and what others may be watching on Netflix than in checking out the articles I am reading in The Economist, Financial Times, WSJ, NY Times, WaPo, etc. courtesy of ink on paper.
What are “F/J tickets”?
Eh, IMO, she is just as much to blame here. I don’t fly spirit, but if you have long legs, this is a problem that can’t be remedied. It’s not really “man spreading” as there is literally nowhere else for your legs to go. I’ve had this issue in the back row of the RJ’s from United. I typically pay up for MCE, but still. This is a problem when you have long legs. I can’t speak for the OP, but it’s not as cut and dry as it’s made out to be.
Long legs? Buy up, or bear it in your own space. Cut & dried. Simple as that.