Legroom on a plane

[DJRC]

carl_w said:

hman said:

Only the budget airlines dont offer food.

Wrong, BA don't do food on short haul either. They used to.

Define food? But yes they do. On the heathrow to Rome flight it's usually a chicken sandwich in some pinch fold over flatbread. These days if possible I pay the 119quid and upgrade to business just to avoid it! It's similar in their heathrow to Munich flights. Lofty offer tesco white sandwich bread sandwiches filled with something on the same routes. As do Swiss from uk to Zurich and or Geneve. I fly and have flown these routes every week for the last 4 yrs.

[DJRC]

swerni said:

OzzyR1 said:

This thread

I'd be willing to bet that none of the people banging on about what they would say/do in these hypothetical situations, either pro or anti recliner, would say a word when on a plane in real life.

Keyboard warriorism at its finest.

If someone in front of me reclines more than one notch,I'll politely ask them not to.
I don't object on moral grounds, they have every right to, it's just at 6'5" it can be a tad painful.
Unfortunately our travel policy is cattle so I end up doing hundreds of thousands of miles at the wrong end of the plane.

So far this year I've only had to ask one person and most people are very considerate.

At @the wookie. I'd expect your folks to be at the front of the plan with plenty of leg room

Bloody hell swerni don't go bringing reality into this!
Most ppl are of course polite and considerate because that is largely how we are. There is also the fact that as frequent flier know but many do not is that aircrew tolerance for disturbances is now very low. Make any sort of threatening scene or noises to anybody and you stand a much higher chance these days of finding yourself on the wrong side of plod.

[King Herald]

creampuff said:

Seat recline results in very low or no loss of legroom. It does result is loss of room at chest and head level, which is counteracted by you reclining your own seat. Have I mentioned I think all economy class passengers should recline their seat and get a good sleep on their long flight?

I was wondering what all the fuss was when I first heard about this 'seat back wars', issue, as the 'hinge' on the seat is pretty much at knee level, I didn't even think it affected knee clearance. Or not more than an inch or so anyway.

creampuff said:

Cathay Pacific used to use a seat where the back of the seat was a hard shell and when you "reclined" it, the seat bottom cushion slid forward and the back cushion slid down. There was no movement whatsoever in the back of the seat from the point of view of the passenger behind. They had negative passenger feedback to this design.

I flew in these a a few times, and I thought they were a good idea, except you do reduce legroom: your own. Even with my short legs it was an issue, but totally under my own control. If I had long legs I could simply stay upright and not affect anybody else.

And it also helped with the 'seat back savages', the people who see your seat as a climbing frame, to haul and hang and bounce on when leaving or entering their own seat........

I trust the people who hate the seat recliners never, ever recline their own seat????

How about the long-leggers ask the person in front to swap seats, before they start a fisticuffs session in-flight? They might just find they have to move seats a dozen times before they find someone acceptable to sitting bolt upright overnight.....

[AstonZagato]

A few years ago I was on a domestic US flight. I was jet lagged to hell and had conducted continuous intense meetings for the previous three days. I needed to sleep. I tried to recline my seat. It wouldn't budge. It felt jammed. Hmm. I wonder what will happen if I push harder? No, nothing. What if I push REALLY hard? There is a loud SNAP, the seat reclined suddenly and I heard a loud yelp from the woman behind.
The coffee on her tray table had spilt all over her. I was mortified and began to apologise profusely as she shouted at me...
....Until she asked angrily, "Couldn't you see it was jammed?".
"What? How would you know it was jammed?"
She tried to change the subject.
"So you jammed it?"
She wouldn't answer.
I turned round and went to sleep in my fully reclined seat and left her to deal with her coffee-stained wet lap.

[King Herald]

creampuff said:

I'm more thinking along the lines of a crowded economy cabin and one single person is up tap tapping on their work laptop with a bright screen when everyone else is asleep. Well you never get everyone asleep but a few passengers watching an IFE screen showing a movie or even a laptop showing a movie is a lot less bright than Microsoft Word/Excel and a white screen.

Yes, I had one of these across the aisle to me two weeks ago, Hong Kong to Toronto. 15 hours of economy bliss..... Bright glaring screen, when the rest of the cabin was pitch back, very annoying.

Almost as annoying as the who kept opening her window shade fully, every ten minutes for a look at the clouds below, blinding everybody in the area....

And the clowns who thought it okay to chat at full volume, despite the rest of the cabin being in darkness, reclined, sleeping soundly...

And the peasant (literally) who I waited for for 15 minutes to finish in the bog, and who left dirty footprints on the seat.....

And the next time I went to the pisser, the stupid blond bint who left the toilet full of paper, great wads of tissue paper, carefully camouflaging a giant ball of the stuff she had successfully wadded in and blocked the toilet with.... I tried to call her back but she disappeared into the darkness of the cabin before I could suitably embarrass her in public.

And people complain about cramped knees on their two hour flight to Benidorm???????

[boxst]

I'm flying again tomorrow to San Francisco, having just flown back last weekend all in economy sadly.

I'm quite small, and will recline my seat as others do in front of me. I never really found it a problem, although as mentioned somewhere above someone immediately going 'full recline' as fast as possible is a bit of an initial shock. I've never had anything on my tray spilt because of it.

I understand that if you are tall, not even freakishly so, but just tall it can be painful in economy but it is a compromise against comfort and money. These days you can pay to get certain extra legroom seats (albeit probably next to a baby) and of course travel in premium economy or business (my company policy doesn't allow it ).

[0000]

What's even more annoying than not being able to get an extra legroom seat as they're all taken only to find out someone barely more than 5'0 has booked one.

They used to be available to tall people, now it's just whoever pays first.

[Clivey]

Why would you try to ram your seat back as fast / hard as possible without investigating what's stopping it from moving? Do you do similar with your car bootlid / tailgate? Do you ram your car seat (if manual) back into the passenger's knees behind?

Or is it that you're trying to prove that an unstoppable tt > an immovable object?

[AstonZagato]

Clivey said:

Why would you try to ram your seat back as fast / hard as possible without investigating what's stopping it from moving? Do you do similar with your car bootlid / tailgate? Do you ram your car seat (if manual) back into the passenger's knees behind?

Or is it that you're trying to prove that an unstoppable tt > an immovable object?

If that is aimed at me, then yes I did have a look. There was nothing on my side and the lady behind was tiny so it wasn't part of her. These devices were unknown to me back then (I first heard of them a couple of year later). She didn't have a laptop on her tray table or anything large that I could see when I was looking at the mechanism.

It felt as though there was some give in the system - as though it just needed a stronger push. That's what I gave it. It worked.

[JensenA]

Clivey said:

Why would you try to ram your seat back as fast / hard as possible without investigating what's stopping it from moving? Do you do similar with your car bootlid / tailgate? Do you ram your car seat (if manual) back into the passenger's knees behind?

Or is it that you're trying to prove that an unstoppable tt > an immovable object?

You're the sort of person, that If I was recounting an amusing story of how I was stopped for speeding on the A58' at 3 in the morning, and that the policeman who stopped me had his flies wide open and his dick was hanging out. You would respond by asking why I wasn't using the M62? why was I speeding when I should know the speed limits? and what was I doing driving my car at 3 in the morning? And how did I know it was his dick? It could have been his truncheon?

[Clivey]

AstonZagato said:

If that is aimed at me, then yes I did have a look. There was nothing on my side and the lady behind was tiny so it wasn't part of her. These devices were unknown to me back then (I first heard of them a couple of year later). She didn't have a laptop on her tray table or anything large that I could see when I was looking at the mechanism.

It felt as though there was some give in the system - as though it just needed a stronger push. That's what I gave it. It worked.

Not specifically aimed at you (if you looked, fair play). - I've personally witnessed people throwing their full weight against the seat back on their first attempt at reclining without giving thought to what might be in the way (someone standing and trying to get out of their seat, for example).

JensenA said:

You're the sort of person, that If I was recounting an amusing story of how I was stopped for speeding on the A58' at 3 in the morning, and that the policeman who stopped me had his flies wide open and his dick was hanging out. You would respond by asking why I wasn't using the M62? why was I speeding when I should know the speed limits? and what was I doing driving my car at 3 in the morning? And how did I know it was his dick? It could have been his truncheon?

Edited by Clivey on Saturday 30th August 12:09

[creampuff]

swerni said:

If someone in front of me reclines more than one notch,I'll politely ask them not to.
I don't object on moral grounds, they have every right to, it's just at 6'5" it can be a tad painful.
Unfortunately our travel policy is cattle so I end up doing hundreds of thousands of miles at the wrong end of the plane.

So far this year I've only had to ask one person and most people are very considerate.

At @the wookie. I'd expect your folks to be at the front of the plan with plenty of leg room

Are you talking short flights on 737s or long flights on twin aisle airliners? If the latter then if you fly that much you should know you can select a bulkhead seat where there is a wall and not another seat in front of you. It's up to you (and anyone who doesn't want a reclined seat in front of them) to select a bulkhead seat, not for other passengers to curtail their own use of aircraft facilities.

[Sheepshanks]

swerni said:

If someone in front of me reclines more than one notch,I'll politely ask them not to.

My missus always objects strongly when people in front recline - we just flew to Orlando on Virgin in economy and the woman in front fully reclined her seat as soon as the seat belt sign went off. My missus went bonkers. The woman kept saying "I'm entitled", like people on benefits do. She only put her seat up during the meal service when told to by the crew.

We came back in Premium Economy. Our daughter had our granddaughter asleep on her knee and the person in front of her fully reclined her seat, waking granddaughter. I honestly thought my missus was going to lamp the recliner!

swerni said:

I don't object on moral grounds, they have every right to, it's just at 6'5" it can be a tad painful.
Unfortunately our travel policy is cattle so I end up doing hundreds of thousands of miles at the wrong end of the plane.

I have a colleague who is 6'6" and he also has unusually long upper legs. He played the health and safety card and can fly in extra legroom or premium economy etc seats. He also got a 5 Series company car as he couldn't fit in a 3 Series / A4.

[Sheepshanks]

swerni said:

Because we use HRG to book our flights, quite often the codes they use aren't upgradable either.

I thought that people who booked through corporate travel companies often got upgraded due to the amount of business the travel company was placing with the airline?

[0000]

creampuff said:

If the latter then if you fly that much you should know you can select a bulkhead seat where there is a wall and not another seat in front of you. It's up to you (and anyone who doesn't want a reclined seat in front of them) to select a bulkhead seat, not for other passengers to curtail their own use of aircraft facilities.

Thank God half the seats on a plane are bulkhead seats, otherwise this wouldn't be very useful.

[boxst]

Sheepshanks said:

I thought that people who booked through corporate travel companies often got upgraded due to the amount of business the travel company was placing with the airline?

We just used to get a discount with BA, no upgrades.

[Sheepshanks]

boxst said:

Sheepshanks said:

I thought that people who booked through corporate travel companies often got upgraded due to the amount of business the travel company was placing with the airline?

We just used to get a discount with BA, no upgrades.

I've got several colleagues who came from a firm who used Amex Corporate Travel and they said they got upgraded more often than not.

The Government uses HRG and a friends son flies internationally a few times a year and he always gets upgraded.

[creampuff]

0000 said:

Thank God half the seats on a plane are bulkhead seats, otherwise this wouldn't be very useful.

Half the people on the airplane aren't 6'2" either.

I'm getting the impression that the tall anti-recliners just have not grasped the fact that economy class travel has very limited space and it uncomfortable for everyone except 3 year olds for whom it must seem like an armchair with TV.

[tenpenceshort]

Try entertaining an 18 month old on a 4 hour flight, when he's tired but won't sleep. I think the poor people ahead and behind us got bored of 'peepo' after about 3 hours solid of it.

[creampuff]

JensenA said:

I speeding when I should know the speed limits? and what was I doing driving my car at 3 in the morning? And how did I know it was his dick? It could have been his truncheon?

Powerful analogy!!!