To refuse to un-recline dd's plane seat...

[MerryMarigold]

Dh reckons I am. I reckon I am not.

So, long haul flight. Up at 3am to get to airport. 2 flights, 4 hour transit, bit of a hideous trip.

Anyways, on second flight, dd aged 5 FINALLY falls asleep. Thank God. Recline her seat so she is more comfortable and will hopefully sleep longer. 5 minutes later lady behind pokes my arm and asks me to put the chair up. Not very politely. I tell her my dd is asleep. She says she can't open her table with the chair reclined. (I have done this many times, so know it is entirely possible). I kneel on my chair and help her open table. Says she can't see TV screen. I adjust TV screen angle for her. She then proceeds to kick Dd's chair several times, whilst I get annoyed but decide to ignore.

10 mins later drinks come round and she speaks to the air steward in local language. He says to me. "Can I raise the seat?" and I tell him dd is sleeping. He says, "I'll do it gently" and just leans over me and does it. Thankfully she didn't wake up and managed to sleep in a contorted way for a lot longer.

I am usually the sort of person who doesn't stick up for myself and who doesn't like putting other people out (I didn't recline my own chair for the entire 9 hour flight as her large dh was behind me). I was very tired, I think that's why I was a bit arsey. I am also not being PFB. I have 3 children, but the others were not as tired and were fine.

Dh said it was her 'right' to have the seat up at least until the food is cleared up (this is probably at least 3 hours into the flight as it's a long flight). I said, "Says who?" Does her right to eat more comfortably trump my dd's right to sleep more comfortably?

So who is right?

I was on the A380 lower deck recently - everything so new and clean, the seats seemed roomier, def slightly wider, possibly a bit more leg room. Even aisles seemed wider. Great choice of viewing.

agree completely doozie! we've actually decided our next holiday destination based on where we can fly A380 economy. We were undecided between going to A or B for holiday. The A380 we can get from here to B but not from here to A, so we're going to B. It's a great economy class imo. Such a wide spacious feeling.

The A380 knocks the socks off 747. We had it all the way to Aus except for one leg, and the 747 was so shabby in comparison.

Anyone remember smoking sections on flights? Wonder of there were as much whinging about those, given there was no Internet to be PA on back then.

I had to sit in the row in front of one of those on a flight from NYC to Paris as a teen. Oh, the pong!

LOL, yes expat! this is memory lane! I was once sat on a flight to Singapore, 11 hours (roughly) on the last non-smoking row of economy. The rows behind me were all smoking. But all the other smokers in the front two thirds of the plane, and there were loads of smokers 20 odd yrs ago, well there wasn't enough smoking seats for them all, so they just came up to the smoking section and smoked in the aisle. Which was in fact - bang next to me. Them standing in the aisle, me sitting in my seat at cigarette hand level, I must have inhaled the equivalent of 2 cartons on that flight. I stank like the heavens. I couldn't get the smell out of my hair (or maybe it was my nostrils) for weeks! One of them was a man with fat very pungent cigars.

It really does make the small inconvenience of the passenger in front of me reclining slip right into insignificance.

And don't get me started on loud drunk people on flights. I want to hang draw and quarter them!

lol@ where did they PA back then with no internet. The net is heaven for PA personalities.

I have no problem revealing my age. I went on my first plane trip at the age of 11 in 1958; my first transatlantic flight at the age of 20 in 1967.

I've also crossed the Atlantic by ocean liner twice. Now that is the way to go, but it does take about 160 hrs. longer.

I definitely remember smoking, but luckily never had to sit near the smoking section. I also remember when you got full meal service in economy even on short-haul flights if they occurred during a normal meal time.

Smoking "section" - ha! like the air suddenly stopped in the last row of the smoking bit and didn't travel forwards at all. I was always a bit that they wouldn't let people smoke pipes, but allowed cigars! Pipe smoke, to me, was far nicer than disgustingly bitter cigar smoke.

My favourite flight was on British Midland from Dundee to London - I'm not quite sure why they were doing it but the cabin staff were giving away bottles of wine by the handful! And the pilot was a jolly nice chap who kept telling us which of the collections of lights that we could see out the window (night flight) was which city/large town.

My other favourite flight was back from Portugal to Gatwick - I have a friend who is a BA pilot and I decided that I'd like to see the cockpit, as this was allowed back then (and I was flying alone). Asked, got taken up there, and the co-pilot had actually been at BA flying school with my friend, so they offered me to sit in the cockpit for the landing! It was brilliant.

Ha, just caught up on the A380 bit. I've only been on one, belongs to Qantas. I got altitude sickness on it. Not nice - and I was the 4th person that flight to get altitude sickness.
Also, it might have been a dodgy one, but I really didn't like the seatbelts - you could pull them tight but they'd just slip loose again far too easily, and since I was trying to restrain my 4yo in his seatbelt, that was pretty fucking useless and very annoying.

Scone, WOW!!!!!! How amazing! Then I can definitely see you are talking back of the days where flying in general, and definitely transatlantic was very much the preserve of the elite (I don't mean 'elite' as an insult, it was just different back then). The old Alan Wicker moments. I know nothing of how it was back then, my first longhaul was a good 25 or so yrs after yours, and it was mainstream by then. My aunt though has shown us loads of photos of how the translatlantic flights were back then, and her stories, they are simply captivating and so, well, quaint. And I loved to see how passengers dressed back then. Men in suits and ties. Ladies in dresses and jackets. Many even had hats on! Men and women! My aunt (with a normal enough UK regional accent) was given elocution lessons by her airline to sound more upper class in her job.

As for getting on an ocean liner to go to Canada or the US, I just can't even think of that. That is just like an old fake movie to me.

I hope you enjoy your lovely memories of the bygone years of travel, and thank you for sharing them. (oh, and happy cattle-classing in the meantime, lol)

Oh, that reminds me, on that first flight, my brothers and I were allowed to visit the cockpit. I think it was pretty common practice, especially for kids flying for the first time.

I was quite dressed up for my first transatlantic trip. I was going to the UK to study; my grandmother had made me a tweed suit which I wore on the plane. High heeled shoes and handbag to match; no hat though. I wore it all on the train to Scotland, too. People were dressed up on the train as well, as I recall.

YY, when the captain turned off the seatbelt sign, hoards of people who didn't have seats in smoking got up and went into smoking to puff in the aisles. Gag!

I yearn to cross the Atlantic via ocean liner. It's an aspiration of mine. Bliss! Getting dressed for dinner, sleeping in a real bed. I love being on ships, though.

Oh yes, the cockpit visits. I was early 20s (and trying to act sophisticated just in case the captain or the 1st officer were single, lol) when I got to see the inside of a cockpit for the first time, it was GREAT! and my fake worldly-wise sophistication flew right down the drain as I whooped and screeched like a happy 5yr old.

Scones, I love these clothing stories. Especially since even someone like Bill Gates would get on a flight now in chinos and a washed out polo, lol. One of my old aunt's stories that I loved was: Back in the 50s and 60s when she was stewardess not cabin crew, she hates that term not many people had cameras then apparently. She didn't have one, even though she had this high-flying job. Passengers with cameras would ask her to photograph them onboard, and in return they would often take a photo of my aunt and the other stewardesses, and months later my aunt would receive these photos through the post. The photos are great to see, but the letters, and the postmarks, and the stories the letters tell. They're simply amazing. The Golden Time of travel.

and Scone, sorry, but it doesn't. It rhymes with moan. Really!

YY, when the captain turned off the seatbelt sign, hoards of people who didn't have seats in smoking got up and went into smoking to puff in the aisles. Gag!

yes and they kind of RUSHED to do it. Eyes on the seatbelt light. Fingers on buckle. Check pocket for smokes and matches. Seatbelt Lights Out. and CHAAAARGE!

It rhymes with moan. Really!

Not in Scotland!

Scone, there have been entire threads about this, as I'm sure you know, and the one thing that stands out is that it doesn't work by region! It seems to be family-based. It may be true that more people in Scotland say scon but it might not be either. My Dad is from Yorkshire and says scoan - so we all do too. My Australian MIL calls it a scon but we're not falling for that. Scoan it is and scoan it will stay in my family.

I've read those threads. I think there are actual polls (am at work so can't spend the time researching) that show that Scots prefer "scon" by around 90 percent.

sorry, this wee tartan clad piece of heather lassie fae the glens (well she used to be, a lifetime ago) is with the

"scone rhymes with moan bone phone" camp (yay for camp Thumbswitch!)

I kind of assumed scone (the person) must have been from the US as I have colleagues who make it rhyme with lawn, fawn, gone.

how can you say tattie-scone with a gone sound? That's just wrong, lol. It should then become potato-scone/gone. Tattie and scoan both sounding guttural and common Scottish to me, Potato Scone (gone) sounds nice and.... well... Stirling, Crief, Milngavie (posh)

Honestly, I have never heard scone/gone in Scotland, ever. It was always scone/moan. I thought the scone/gone was purely American. I live and learn though. TY all

Well I suppose we shouldn't derail this reclining thread any longer after this - you may well be right, I haven't seen any polls but accept that they exist. I'm still sticking with scoan though. :P

X-post with SlowRed!

I am the only person in the US who pronounces scone to rhyme with gone.

No, really. The US pronunciation rhymes with bone.

Tattie scon, no problem.

I've read those threads. I think there are actual polls (am at work so can't spend the time researching) that show that Scots prefer "scon" by around 90 percent.

I now have visions of wee Alex churning out another white paper on the scone issue. What's important for iScotland, monetary union, trident bases, and the scone issue. We must stand united as a nation in the face of the scone. They may take our land. They make take our lives. But they will never take our scones!

I have to work, y'all! But this has been fun.

I'll check later to see if the thread is still going.

Just so we're clear. I am 5, 9 and a half. Each and every time the person in front of me reclines their seat fully, the seat is physically on my knees. I am not lying. This is why I never recline my seat, long or short haul. I could not bear to think I was causing the person behind me, the pain I am caused by the person in front. Some of you seem unable to grasp that. Some of us consider other people that much, despite our 'rights'.

Of course people recline their seats. I do not want to deny you that pleasure. But if you are told by the person behind you that your seat is physically hurting them would you continue to assert your right to recline? If so, you are an inconsiderate, selfish arse. I mean that makes you a horrible person. Fact.

Different airlines must have different seats then, because several other posters who are even taller have said a reclining seat doesn't touch their legs at all.