To wake someone up on a day flight?

[hmwbele]

I was recently on a 9 hour flight. It departed at 10am. Sat in economy in a row of three. I got allocated this seat and couldn’t change it.

I had the window seat and then two strangers next to me. After the lunch service, the person sat in the middle decided to have a nap. They slept about an hour before I decided I wanted to get up to stretch my legs and go speak to my friend who was sat somewhere else.

I like to get up every two hours to try and avoid leg issues.

After I woke them up and apologised and said I needed to stretch my legs they seemed annoyed and said it’s pretty selfish to wake someone up for that.
AIBU?

This pretty much nails it! If you want to get up every hour or so to stretch legs .. book an aisle seat. I'd find it irritating being next to you even if I wasn't asleep !
Middle seat guy had to accept he'd be disturbed if he wanted to skeep

You really think trying to avoid a DVT is selfish??

I’m amazed that so many posters think it’s unreasonable to get up and down on a long flight. Do none of you pay attention to the recommendations to avoid blood clots?

Airliners aren’t designed for hundreds of people all getting up to stretch their legs once an hour! Have you been on one? The space for walking is tiny compared to the numbers on the plane, and then there are the trollies blocking the aisles.

This is why we have flight socks and exercises we can do in our seats.

I always choose the aisle seat so I can get up. I would never wake a sleeping passenger because "I wanted to talk to my friend". A 9 hour flight is tedious. You can bet someone wants to sleep and it helps with jet lag when changing time zones.

I don’t think your behaviour was reasonable .
It’s fine to wake someone if you need the loo.
It’s fine to get up to use the loo a couple of times during a 9 hour flight - ideally at considerate times .
You can do exercises in your seat . If you are the sort of person who wants to keep getting up you need to pay for an aisle seat.

Or if you want to sleep the entire time. Pay for a window seat.

Yeah, I prefer a window seat and I accept that if I'm in the window seat, I only get up if I need the loo.

However, the OP says "I got allocated this seat and couldn’t change it" so my guess is that nobody in this scenario actually got to choose their seat.

I agree getting up frequently just to have a wander about and chat to a friend is selfish though. On a nine-hour flight, most people are going to need to get up once or twice to use the toilet, so stretch your legs then, rather than getting up and down all the time.

I also think that the fact that it was a 'day flight' is irrelevant, because when you're flying long haul all bets are off. There will be passengers on connecting flights, there are time differences and jet lag to factor in etc. What's 'day' for one passenger is 'night' for another in terms of sleep schedules.