4 ms·
It's an American cultural phenomenon. I've always been intrigued by the origin of it. At some point someone even invented and sold a device to prevent the perso
by gomox 9y ago
It's an American cultural phenomenon. I've always been intrigued by the origin of it. At some point someone even invented and sold a device to prevent the person in front of you to recline their seat:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_Defender https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knee_Defender
I guess at some point someone popularized the notion that people reclining in front of you is a form of disrespect and it stuck in people's minds. I'm over 6ft tall and I hate coach seats as much as anyone (and living in South America, flying is usually an endeavor taking over 8 hours a pop) but I have never felt that the person reclining in front of me was wronging me in any way.
It might have to do with the usual brevity of domestic flights within the US (also leading to the colorful concept of a "redeye" flight).
- MarkSweep 9y agoI don't know if purely American. Flying domestically in Japan, people will ask if it is OK before reclining their seats.
- robin_reala 9y agoSame on the Shinkansen, but then that’s not surprisingly given typical Japanese levels of politeness.
- upvotinglurker 9y agoIs the person behind the potential recliner realistically able to say "no," or is that too impolite?
- logfromblammo 9y agoYou shouldn't be directing your ire at your other passengers. The responsibility for this lies squarely with the airline, which knows full well about mean femur lengths and mean hip widths, and consciously chooses seat configurations guaranteed to be uncomfortable for a large fraction of their passengers, in order to squeeze more profit out of each flight. If people make a fuss, and demand laws or government regulation for minimum dimensions of passenger spaces, that will establish a minimum floor on flight prices, but it will also ensure that everyone can be accommodated equally. If it's a race to the bottom anyway, it might be a good idea to build a floor at a reasonable height above rock bottom. Short and narrow people can then resent taller, fatter people for raising their fares instead of tall people getting angry about reclining seats.
- justin66 9y agoIf there was ever an argumentum ad absurdum regarding the wisdom of where airline seating has gone over recent decades, it is the existence of that device.