As airlines are increasingly squishing more passengers into the same metal tube in the name of economics, one of the most polarised debates in economy class travel is regards the rights of airline passengers to recline their seats fully (well .. to the maximum extent allowed by the seat configuration). First and business class travellers please read no further.

There are clearly two schools of thoughts of out there as exemplified by some of these snippets of conversations from a Fodor's discussion thread on this topic :

Anti-recline :

This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine! Keep yer darn head off my lap!!!!! My knees are squished and going numb, I can't get out to go to the bathroom, and I'm trapped like a bug under a shoe until the lack of oxygen or movement almost does me in! If it's bedtime and we're traveling internationally and dinner is over, then s-l-o-w-l-y recline, otherwise buy a first class ticket if you must lay down!!!! Sheesh, could you be more inconsiderate?! I once 'unreclined' the seat of a nun who was sitting in front of my 6'3" husband when she was in the bathroom!

Pro-recline :

I suggest that anyone here who doesn't think I paid for a seat which reclines and then have a right to get that recline out of it buy their OWN ticket in First Class. Otherwise suck it up...you need to think about the person in front of you as well as the person behind you. And if you can't get out of your seat to go to the BR then maybe you should shed a few pounds because in some instances that IS the real reason there is so much difficulty.

That certainly gave you a feel of the emotional nature of this issue. Let me state my position up front - I am firmly in the "respectful recline" camp. That is just because your seat can go all the way, doesn't mean you should.

I have been in extremely packed flights where the person in front of me whacks their seat all the way back as soon as the plane levels off after take off. Seriously ... that is just plain disrespectful and inconsiderate of your fellow passengers. Sure, put your seat back a little but the extra degrees that you recline is not going to make a huge difference to your comfort but it makes a huge difference to your rear passenger's discomfort. This contributes to a lot of "recline rage" between passengers as the Fodor's discussion thread illustrates. And here's another great example of the angst that this can trigger, from Barbara Correa's travel column on Yahoo :

Just after sitting down in a jam-packed coach flight facing ten hours of flying hell, a teenaged boy in front of me wearing earbuds let his seat slam all the way back, hitting my knees. It was the last straw. I completely lost it and started shoving his entire seat back and forth and yelling at him to put up his seat. Incredibly, the youth seemed totally unfazed by my performance, and in fact ignored me and my command for the entire trip.

There is a really easy way to deal with this without leaving it to the passengers to battle it out. Airlines need to restrict how much their economy class seats can recline. The Wall Street Journal reports that Southwest Airlines in the US has taken the lead and has taken steps to restrict the reclinability of their seats. The justification provided by the airline was to allow passengers to be able to use their laptops.

I say - forget the laptops - do this for passenger comfort ! Airlines will have less grumpy passengers on board, everyone will get a better rest as a result and you have happy customers ! Happy customers equals repeat customers.

My message to all the chronic recliners out there, please think about the person seated behind you and go easy with that recline button.

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