& @SamSam
I’m trying to dig up a reference. IIRC it was a quip from renowned Australian science personality Dr Karl who is usually pretty good with the details. I’ll let you know if I find one.
Excuse me, but numerous airline workers and the people who design the airplanes have said that these seats CANNOT be reclined as they are currently designed safely unless a person is exceptionally careful. How often do you see someone be ‘exceptionally careful’ with anything that they do?
I can say one a year, if that.
That is an out and out lie, PhasmaFelis. The realistic numbers have said that the seats could be sold for 1/2 what they are today in Coach and Economy and the airlines would still be making a profit.
They LOVE to lie about that they are having ‘such difficulties making profits’ but the truth is that they are quite profitable.
So… where are these voices? Can I get them from the source or am I supposed to just take your word for it? Because without any formalised investigation or reporting, all you have are anecdotes not data.
I’m guessing the bankruptcy and closure of many airlines is also an out and out lie? Or were they just window dressing to perpetuate the struggling airline ‘myth’?
The problem with YOUR numbers is you presume every flight is always going to be full, and that airline tickets are sold in a vacuum independent of their competition. Yes… if every plane was full you could drop the price of tickets. There is no way every plane will ever be full.
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I’ll just tl;dr this one because I don’t expect our friend to actually read
Borenstein argues that the problem seems not to be that taxes have risen, but that base fares have fallen and stayed so low.
So…exactly what I told him above then?
since the downwards pressure on seat price and customers choosing the cheapest option is the exact reason they jam people in like sardines.
Yep.
I’m sorry you don’t understand how holding a baby works. I was in the window seat. I rocked my baby to sleep in my seat, then gently crossed one of my legs up horizontally into a triangle shape with my foot resting on my other knee. I laid the sleeping baby in the crook of my horizontal knee, creating a little spot where she could sleep lying down.
I was trying to help my fellow passengers. I came prepared with blankets, diapers, toys, formula, bottles, etc. And I held off on her feeding time so I could feed her during takeoff, thus keeping the pressure in her ears equalized and avoid having a screaming baby in pain. I did all of that because it was common courtesy to do so.
It is also common courtesy to not slam your chair back without checking. Everyone around me knew I was traveling with a baby. That was plainly obvious while we were boarding and taxiing to the runway. This person just didn’t have the courtesy to look. I imagine it was someone just like you! “I have the right to do that!” is the call of someone who is a jerk.
As Dave Barry succinctly put it: there’s no law that says I can’t walk by your table in a restaurant and fart next to your steak. But I wouldn’t do that, because I care how other people feel.
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Stop.
There are problems with airlines, but this has veered way off course. It has gone from funny tirades, CSB anecdotes, to personal insults.
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@Dustin_Dopps: careful, you’re arguing with someone who seems to spend a good part of each day arguing in these forums. For what its worth, I doubt the person in front of you was as aware that you were travelling with a baby as you think, but more importantly given current airplane culture I don’t think he was being a jerk by not looking back. But I think that should change now that economy gives us so little space, and I hope we see more discussions about this until the airlines start encouraging people to give warning before leaning back. It would be a really simple fix.
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Thanks for the sobering comment. I’ll leave quietly with this last note: the person in front of me might not have been aware of my child. But I might have had a laptop open. Or a drink on my tray table. Or I might be really tall with my knees already in that space. I still contend that the socially responsible thing is to either look before leaning or actually speak with the person behind you.
Have a good evening.
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Agreed. I apologize for my part in the veering.
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Just like to add, because some things are worth positive reinforcement…
Thanks. 
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Don’t get me wrong, I completely agree with you. And I’d like to think that my method is courteous too: lean back an inch and then pause for 10 seconds or so for the person to prepare, and then recline fully.
But I think its still a matter of being nice if you do it, but not necessarily rude if you don’t. I hope that soon the airlines will start drawing attention to the issue so it becomes something that we expect from our fellow passengers.
That’s not how the law works, and I’m pretty sure there has been an issue or two in the long history of airlines relating to seat reclining.
Class actions are unlikely since the class would be really small and those who have actually suffered as a result of these seats probably have fairly unique injuries. But there conceivably could be products liability suits brought against both the seat manufacturers and the airlines, as well as suits against the airlines for failing to protect passengers. You could probably argue that modern technology allows for safer designs or more prominent warnings like a warning light, alarm, or haptic feedback when the seat clutch is engaged.
There’s probably not much probability of success, but it’s not the contractual nature of buying a ticket that would save the airline.
Compelling thread. And, I disclose that I am a recliner, and a conscientious person, who is somewhat terrified that these knee defenders are going to make everywhere like when I was travelling in Spain by bus, and both times I reclined, the person behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said that they were feeling clausterphobic. I insist that if everyone reclined, the amount of space would remain the same, and the ‘real problem’ are people who don’t want their airline seat to mimic the measly 20° angle that their damn car seats are probably at.
But, I disagree with the reason why it’s okay to recline. Seems the arguments claiming that the ‘right’ to recline exsists because paid for are also saying that anyone needing special considerations due to height, weight, injury, paternity or maternity, age or disability can just be richer or STFU. 
So I think that perhaps the problem is that planes aren’t really set up to encourage seat swapping, though a lot of people do it. You have to balance your desire to swap with the mortal threat of not being able to get your fellow passengers to stop talking to you once you say blah to them (least in my case). But if, like on Southwest, the system were more flexible in terms of choosing where to sit, it might work better, as the trend seems to be less and less space. Maybe there could even be a little 5-row special no-reclining section in the back (with a curtain around it on all sides, please).
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To build on Dave Barry’s point, there are some people who feel that if something isn’t expressly forbidden they are required to do it. Thus they feel they MUST fart on everyone’s steaks, and feel really shitty that they can’t. Why doesn’t the rest of the world respect their feelings?
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Ejecting them without rerouting or landing would probably be an even better deterrent.
Don’t want me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me
(Economists have been saying for years that we should act as sociopaths do…)
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I recline my seat on long flights because it’s impossible for me to sleep otherwise. Your move internet.
Yes and no. That post was mostly to infuriate, because people with kids sometimes act with the presumption that everyone should help them and get out of their fucking way because they’ve made the choice to have children. I actually am surprised that the person in front of him put the seat back as per the story, it seems like someone carrying a baby and that much baby shit would be hard to forget, but in this case we have no idea if the story being told is true, or a whole range of particulars about it. Everyone is always blameless in their own re-telling. Did the guy in front board before babyman? If so how would the guy know whether babyman was sat directly behind him? My point about HOW he was sitting is also entirely valid. You’re not supposed to sit with your legs crossed on an airplane because your knees will interfere with your neighbour’s space and they are going to be higher and easier to impact with a reclining seat than they would be if you were sitting as intended. Therein lies the cause of him being hit and his baby waking up.
Furthermore, people know how aeroplanes operate and that seats are things that can recline. I was mostly driving trollies with telling him he should thank others for subsidising his kid, but the fact remains that he isn’t ignorant about the normal operation of a plane seat and if he wanted to guarantee his baby would not be disturbed, there is an option.
He’s not demanding special treatment
Actually he is, but that’s another argument. Do you constantly think about the person sitting behind you on a plane and whether they will be woken by you reclining if they aren’t carrying a baby?
@PhasmaFelis :,(
ow! my feelings!
