Hard to imagine, but “seat recline wars” are a thing.
So much so that people actually have invented things to block you from reclining your seat:
Airlines have counteracted this by inventing seats that recline without encroaching on other passenger’s space – or installing ones that don’t recline at all!
But what do you do if you are on an old fashioned seat, that does recline?
What happens if you choose to hit that button, and lean back, and it works?
The person behind you has to now make a choice:
“Should I hit my button and recline it to get more space, or should I just let it stop here?”
What generally happens is a domino effect – if one person reclines in a row, it goes back and back and back until you find a seat that does not have the ability to. This person now has a limited amount of space between the back of your chair and the front of their face. In some aircraft, that can be quite close even for me, and I’m a fairly small person.
In the situation you have painted, you did not let us know whether the person’s seat behind you did have the ability to recline – perhaps you didn’t take the time to notice. Whatever the case, the person sat there for half the flight, with your seat in his face, hoping that it would go back upright.
When it did not, he asked you to move it.
Perhaps his tone was more forceful than he intended. Perhaps it was meant exactly how it sounded – aircraft are loud and you must speak loudly to be heard properly (my voice carries far on an aircraft, a remnant of my Flight Attendant days).
Either way, the only thing I would have done differently in your case would be to have noticed more – prior to reclining, after reclining. While he was talking – after he finished. Perhaps in doing so you would have your answer on what was and was not appropriate in the situation.
Only you and he can be the judge of that.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/When-on-a-plane-the-guy-sitting-behind-me-told-me-to-make-my-seat-upright-he-was-rude-about-it-What-should-I-have-done
Originally Posted On: 2016-04-10