Plane etiquette

[SJane48S]

Not a big deal at all and could very well be just middle aged annoyance (where really really small things just seem to getting on my wick pretty much all the time, I'm even annoying myself!) but are people ruder & less considerate on planes than they used to be? We flew to New York 2 weeks ago, just before half term and our flight was full of loved up milennials on splurged 'you're taking me to New York, you must really be into me' mini breaks taking selfies snogging and then putting their seats on full recline from take off to touch down.It was a day flight and 3/4 of the seats were on full bloody recline. As an ex pat brat, I spent a lot of my childhood on longhaul flights and was taught it was ok to recline when you wanted to sleep but seat up otherwise, especially when people are eating. We spent the entire flight with seats in our faces and didn't recline ours as there was a young family with small children behind us. Is this standard practice for this generation?! And while I'm in full whinge mode, what is this new trend for having the shutters down the entire flight, even in daytime? Do other people like this?!

I know the answer is if I don't like it, upgrade, before anyone else says it but as well as being an increasingly grumpy old bag I seem to be becoming increasingly tight grumpy old bag!

U* not I

And the only cabin crew member who has commented on this thread was firmly in support of the recliners

Maybe another cabin crew will be along and comment. As just on one flight a fair few people were pretty rude to the crew. For example, complaints about the meal as passenger couldn't eat xyz yet had not ordered a special meal. Complaints as to the temperature of the plane and having one blanket wasn't good enough. Hand luggage that had to be put into a hold further up the rest of their hand luggage filled their hold. We were delayed so possibly people were a little big grumpy to start out with, but I think some people can be very difficult.

Will be travelling long haul again next year. Booking business class this time.

What are these airlines where you can recline "into someones face"?
I swear I have only ever bene on flights where you can be bolt upright or 1cm back from bolt upright!

It was a charter partner but I’m pretty sure that’s not particularly relevant as the space in economy is small anyway and the recline did quite a bit to reduce that. Was their chair hitting my nose? Well pretty obviously not. - - I wasn’t being literal! Oddly, I didn’t have a ruler with me but it was quite a bit more than one centimetre - if it had been one centimetre it wouldn’t have been an issue and I wouldn’t have written an admittedly mardy post!

As a frequent long haul traveller, I get where you are coming from. My travel is 99% London to Australia and people fully reclining their seats from the get go can be annoying. I don’t mean those who partially recline, I mean fully from the time the seat belt goes off. But not much you can do as they are fully allowed it.

My biggest big bear is because I have a under 16 with me, I get stuck in what seems like a family section (when you go to the loo, your section has all the kids and others have none). My DC is a very experienced traveller and is very respectful to other travelers.

I cannot say the same for many of the children we have experienced of late. The amount of jumping up and grabbing my headrest with a handful of my hair (when my seat is fully upright!!!) and knees in the back, and finger poking at the screen all the flight astounds me. If my seat is reclined, I have had my head leave the headrest numerous times with the punching and poking the screen. And stuff being thrown that lands on us.

I keep turning around and asking either the person traveling with them (this happens regularly) to ask the kids to please stop and they do, for about 5 mins. Then the adult is back to sleep. I wonder about this because I am awake for the whole flight (even the nonstop ones) and these kids don’t sleep AT ALL!!! But, I am also the muppet because I don’t complain to the cabin crew. I wish I knew the secret of where to select my seat to avoid being put in this section, any QANTAS staff help me on that front?

We spent the entire flight with seats in our faces and didn't recline ours as there was a young family with small children behind us.

^YABU. It is your problem you didn’t recline your seat. Everyone is entitled to do so.

Yeah, I could have put my chair right back into the woman with the small child as it was ‘my god given right to recline’. I was completely ‘entitled’ too, as you say. Would have made me a bit of an arse though as she was clearly having a not good time and entitled to some consideration!

And quite honestly, even if I’d not had her behind me, I wouldn’t have had the seat on full recline either except if I’d wanted to sleep which is fair enough! I’m in complete sympathy with the PPs with health issues, of course they should make themselves as comfortable as possible.

I only recline when the lights are off on night flights, but I’m not too fussed if the person in front of me does at any time, as long as they are actually lying back. I’ve had people slam their seat back and then sit forward which seems odd. I’m not above slowly pushing the seat back up when this happens.

On my most recent flight the person in front reclined as soon as possible, which is fine. However they then somehow thought that the seat should go further and braced themselves to push it back. All this achieved was trapping my leg with my knee in their back (I have short legs and don’t usually have a problem with leg room on most flights, normally my knee is not touching even a reclined seat back). I would have moved my leg but couldn’t. So they probably thought I was sticking my knee in their back and stopping the seat going back when I was actually in some discomfort as they attempted to break their seat and my leg.

Behind me I did have someone ramming his knee in my back, shoving my seat forward and audibly grumbling, when my seat was fully upright. Once the lights went off I’m afraid I took advantage of a tactical error on his part and reclined when he went to the toilet (easy to spot from the grabbing and yanking of my seat back as he struggled out of his aisle seat). He moved to an empty seat thankfully. Extra legroom seats on this flight were not expensive and were available a few days before we flew so if he really couldn’t fit in a normal seat he should have booked one.

Usually I find that most seats don’t recline enough to make a great deal of difference to the seat behind but for some reason on this flight it did feel like the recline was bigger than usual, so both more comfortable and more intrusive.

Love the use if "entitled* on this thread. Says everything about those posters.

I don't think it's generally a problem on long haul flights where the seat pitch tends to be wider. On short haul economy airlines it can be though because the seat in front can end up just inches from your nose. It can actually be painful for taller passengers behind. Many economy airlines have removed reclining seats so it's less of an issue now.

The people deliberately sticking knees in chair backs or grabbing headsets are the rude ones

This. It amazes me that some people's response to perceived rudeness is more rudeness whilst trying to claim some kind of moral high ground.

@Honeybee85 If you were only 25 weeks pregnant, not 35, surely you wouldn't be that huge. Also, men (and women sometimes!) are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Sometimes men assume a woman is pregnant (thank you, guy on train 20 years ago who asked virgin me when I was due ) and she isn't. Some women carry their pregnancy differently. You cannot assume he knew you were pregnant. Maybe he thought you had a bit of a stomach. Fact is, you are rather unfairly making an assumption he knew, when it is not always so straight forward and obvious. I think men these days tend not to assume a woman is pregnant, lest they offend, so wait until the woman says anything. Which, having been on the wrong end of it, I can understand. All you had to do was tell him and ask him to put his seat back. It's as unfair to assume he knew, just as it is unfair of men to assume a woman with a bit of a stomach is pregnant automatically.

@sarahnade

Funny that you point out to me that surely I couldn’t say if he knew I was pregnant or not but surely YOU knew I couldn’t possibly be that huge?
Do you even realise how contradictive you sound?

Because I am just laughing here about the irony of your post 😆

are you exaggerating? Because seats need to be up for take off and landing, as do shutters, and seats are put up for meals, if not crew will tell people to put them up, if they forget you just ask them.

And past that it's fine to recline, this is the seats function. It is not rude. It's your decision if you chose not to for whatever reason.

Honeybee85 You're quite aggressive and hostile, aren't you? My point stands, unless you are completely massively swollen out there huge at 25 weeks (mostly an impossibility unless you were carrying twins or triplets) then he wouldn't know for sure. And even then, most men would err on the side of caution at least these days, and not want to offend in case they're wrong.

Fact is, you are making major assumptions about what a man knows about pregnant women; they get it wrong as often as not. Even women, too.

@Sarahnade

I can’t point out you are making assumptions whilst you accuse of me of doing the same thing or else I am hostile and agressive?
And then you start to repeat the same assumptions about me?

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

Wow. Issues. Have a biscuit.

I think you have them, so have yourself a whole package

While we're at it, middle seat gets BOTH armrests!!.
Window you get the window to look out of and lean against.
Aisle you get the leg room and the option to get up and down as much as you like.
Middle gets to sit squashed between two strangers, let them have the armrests, it's all they have!

Fixed it for you.

While we're at it, middle seat gets BOTH armrests!!.

Window you get the window to freeze your cheek to and your bladder bursting because you don't feel you can wake the middle and aisle passengers yet again so they can get up and move to let you out.

Aisle you get your legs rammed with trolley and tripped over at two minute intervals making it impossible to sleep or relax at all. Plus you're up and down like a yo-yo because the middle and window passengers have bladders the size of peas.

the trolley

Don’t particularly love the get-go recliners (perfectly ok if it’s a night/sleeping flight) as long as they put it back up for eating etc.

What I hate is the people who take their shoes off and permeate their cabin with cheesy smells. And those people who violently push the seat back screen.

I can’t afford to upgrade sadly.

@HoobaHooba So the next time my dh is on his midday flight after working an 80 hour week of night shifts I’ll remind him not to recline as it’s not technically a night time flight!! Ffs not everyone works on the same time schedule!!

@Bluntness100 no, I’m not exaggerating and yes of course the seats need to be up for landing and take off, they were and I’m pretty sure I haven’t said otherwise! Crew were not telling people to put their seats up for the people who did have meals and the couple in front ignored the pilots request and had to be asked by cabin crew to put them up on landing. The majority of shutters were down the entire flight, personal choice on this particular flight, there was no instruction as far as I know from cabin crew to keep them down (we were middle aisle) but earlier in the year in Kuwait airlines flying back from Sri Lanka whether it was day or night, the cabin crew wanted them down.