Seat Lock Starts Fight on Flight!

i think they should be illegal. you pay your money, get on the flight, expect the seat to recline and then no go because the person behind you doesn't want it? the airlines have to do a better job of letting people know what they can and cannot expect.

 

I've got competing emotions here.....but I have to come down on the side of the Airline on this.
Schedule disrupted and all of the other passengers inconvenienced because two passengers didn't want to play nice.

I would fine them both ALL of the $25,000.00 civil fine and try to bill them for the extra fuel and expense for the extra take-off and landing.

 

why would you expect more legroom than the airlines have been providing for decades? it's not like they just invented the tilt back seat. i'm not saying they have to like it, but it is what it is. or was.

 

i don't abide abusing another passenger, but if my seat won't go back, i expect compensation, unless i'm told it's a possibility before i buy my ticket.

 

I'd like some compensation for the time I was hit very hard on the head by the passenger in front slamming his seat all the way back, without warning, while I was reaching for something in the bag at my feet. He didn't apologize, I put up enough fuss that he moved elsewhere for a couple hours.

I'd also like some compensation for the many hours I've been unable to reach my pills, spare water and food, and exchange reading material because when the seat in front is fully reclined, it becomes physically impossible for me to reach my under-seat carry on bag. (Well, it can be reached if I lean way over into the adjacent seat, if and only if that seat is unoccupied. Uncommon these days.) Most of those recliners won't even raise their seat when they get up to move around.

The space you are expecting is my space too.

I'm able to handle most flights without reclining my seat at all. For the rest, I can handle going just half way when the person behind doesn't have a meal or laptop occupying that space.

 

that's a personal preference, but the airlines don't seem to understand your point of view.

 

I certainly would want my seat to recline. You are crammed in like sardines the way it is.

 

I agree with you on that aspect as well because I have a little (lot) of age on me as well. I have travelled overseas 7 times and numerous times in the U.S. I have pretty much decided where my car won't take me I'm not going. Probably age, but it is too much of a hassle all the way round for me anymore.

 

I like flying Southwest because I can be strategic in seat selection. The seats in front of an exit row don't recline.

 

pointless to this discussion, but i try to respect the people behind me, flying is a major hassle that doesn't need human aggravation added to the equation. i'm not disagreeing with fuzzy or the o/p, but this is better resolved by the airline than the passengers. diverting the flight may have been unnecessary.

 

And of all the airlines, United - ha! Their ratings IIRC are near the low end in consumer satisfaction.

DBCassidy

 

In school we learned if too many rats are put into a cage they start fighting. Now I know why we were taught the basics of animal behavior. It is the metric used by airlines. If you are not having passengers fight, then not enough seats have been stuffed on the plane.

(P.S. Your point about the airlines deciding is spot on.)

 

You are late, such advertising has happened on and off for decades.

Unfortunately, the added leg space has always been temporary. It gets silently removed after the next airline merger or aircraft overhaul.

 

Well, on the one hand, I simply don't get why people need to recline on a 3-4 hour daytime flight. You wouldn't be sleeping if you were in the office. I only recline if it's a night flight, and even then, I tell the person behind me that I'm going to, so I don't take them by surprise or break their laptop.

I don't like it when people recline into me, but I accept that if I'm going to fly economy, that's what's going to happen. It's a particular problem on flights in Asia, where people will recline as far as they can as soon as they're allowed to (or earlier).

But I've recently flown China Eastern medium-haul (10 hours) a few times. Their new A330s have a kind of economy-class seat that I haven't seen before. When you recline, instead of the seat back going backwards, the seat base slides forward. So the person who wants to recline can make the choice between legroom and reclineyness (I claim copyright on this word), rather than the person who wants to recline knowing that they can recline all they want and it's only a problem for the person behind them. There's a shell around the seat too, so the person reclining in front of you doesn't affect the angle your TV screen is sitting at. I wish all airlines had this.