Reclining a seat on a plane could be fraught with tension, and one woman has reignited the controversy over proper etiquette after a recent experience on an overnight flight.
The anonymous Australian woman posted her qualm within the Women Who Travel Facebook group, explaining that she and her friend were on a seven-hour, red-eye flight when the incident took place.
“I sat behind my friend,” she wrote, adding a hand-drawn illustration of the situation. “She’s pregnant, she reclined her seat. Once the lights were dimmed, people began sleeping, I reclined my seat.”
The lady added she normally wouldn’t recline “to avoid this exact scenario,” but decided to because she didn’t have much room after her friend put her seat back.
“I type of needed to to offer myself space,” she said.
Once she reclined her seat, she felt a faucet on her shoulder.
“[The woman behind me] said, ‘Excuse me, are you able to not recline your seat? I’m working on my laptop and I can’t open it when you recline your seat,’ ” she recalled. “I told her that I needed to get some sleep on the flight, which is when she suggested I move to the empty middle seat next to me to sleep.
“The center seat?” she continued in disbelief within the post. “To sleep? Next to a stranger?”
The passenger asked the girl to maneuver to the center seat, so she will be able to proceed working, to which the girl said she had paid for her seat specifically.
“She then asked me if I could compromise by not reclining ‘all the way in which,’ which I did because I used to be uninterested in debating along with her at this point,” she said. “Who if anyone, is in the appropriate here?”
Tons of of comments poured in, with the bulk agreeing the girl working was being unreasonable.
“The seats recline,” one user commented. “There’s nothing incorrect with you using what the airline has provided for you.”
“Person on the laptop could have moved over, it’s not her office space, [s]he was being difficult and entitled,” one other agreed.
Not all agreed though, with a couple of anti-recliners expressing their thoughts on the matter.
“I never ever recline my seat and I feel anyone who reclines their seat is, frankly, a selfish jerk,” one passionate passenger wrote, labeling it a “jerk move.”
“Why are you okay with making another person uncomfortable?” they raged. “You take up their space in a situation where space is already SO limited.”
