It’s time to weigh in on the big online debate of the moment. No, it’s not about whether Attorney General William Barr should be fired, whether putting an cruise ship on quarantine contains or spreads the coronavirus, whether the Houston Astros should be stripped of their 2017 World Series title for cheating.
No, we’re talking about the controversy that really makes Americans air travelers’ blood boil: Do they have a right to recline their seats — or do they need to ask permission from the passenger behind them?
The issue has come to the fore because of the online posting of a video showing a conflict between two passengers on a Jan. 31 American Eagle flight between New Orleans and Charlotte, N.C. The video taken by a women in a reclined seat showed the man seated behind her rhythmically pushing the back of her seat out of irritation at the intrusion into what he regarded as his space. The videographer, Wendi Williams, said this continued throughout the flight.
What really angered Williams — and prompted her to take her case to the jury of the Twitterverse — was that the flight attendant and airline seemed to side with him. Williams said she was scolded and told to delete the video, while the man behind her was given a complimentary cocktail. The video immediately went viral, surpassing a million views and a spirited debate about whether Williams or her unidentified antagonist was in the right.
Some responses invoked what they accept as an unwritten rule of air travel to ask permission before reclining a seat unless it is absolutely necessary for, say, relieving a back problem or catching a brief nap before an important meeting. Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian made himself a target of recliner-rights advocates on Friday when he told CNBC, “The proper thing to do is, if you’re going to recline into somebody, you ask if it’s OK first.”
That may be the case in an ideal world, but the world of modern air travel is anything but ideal, where passengers elbow one another over space in overstuffed overhead bins, are subject to maddening delays and endure long security lines on the way to their cramped seats in sold-out planes. Rare is the trip that doesn’t involve at least one teeth-gritting incident.
The passenger behind Williams was clearly out of line. But neither Williams nor the flight attendant is blameless here: an obvious resolution would have been to simply move her to another seat.
But let’s not lose sight of the real culprit: the carriers who have been shrinking legroom to pack more paying customers in each cabin and the Federal Aviation Administration for rejecting demands to regulate the size of seats in 2018. It’s not just a matter of comfort — especially for taller passengers — but also a matter of safety. The tight seat configurations and narrow rows could slow down evacuations in an emergency, though the FAA accepted the industry’s test that discounted the potential hazard.
In the 1970s, the typical distance between seat backs was 31 to 35 inches. Today, it can be as small as 28 inches, and seat widths have shrunk about an inch, even as the percentage of Americans classified as overweight has increased.
The FAA should take another look at regulating seat size on airplanes.
In the meantime, be considerate about plopping your elbow on that shared armrest. Otherwise you just might become the villain of the next viral video.
