What is the proper etiquette in economy class?

Airplanes are hardly comfortable in any circumstance, and unless I’m hopping continents, it’s only for a few hours. If I can make somebody’s life more pleasant at minimal cost to myself, then I’m happy to do so. If a person is so incredibly large that they can’t fit in a single seat, then I would ask the stewardess to move me as politely as possible so that both of us aren’t more uncomfortable than we need to be, and try not to make a scene.

Generally, being nice is a good thing.

If I sit behind you you have no choice about reclining, you can’t do it. My thigh bone cannot be compressed and since my knees are already wedged into your seat back, you won’t be reclining, though you may cause me some additional pain. So when I ask you not to recline, it really means “Quit trying to crush my knees, can’t you tell it’s not working?”

But if the armrest can be lifted and it makes people more comfortable, you should lift it. That’s just being polite. Otherwise you have to fight the other person’s arm for space anyway, so the only reason not to is that you are afraid to touch the “disgusting” human being next to you. And you shouldn’t recline your seat if anyone is behind you, there just isn’t room. They should just remove the recline function, except that it might be nice if you happen to have an empty seat behind you.

If someone behind me asked me not to lean my chair back I would oblige. I heard that armrests down is a safety issue at take off and landing, like being belted and having the window covers open so you can see out? I don’t know if that is true. If it is a safety reg, then I would say it is reasonable to insist that armrests be down. If someone next to me during the flight wants to raise them I am fine with that. Usually that only happens when there are three seats and the middle one is open.

I like to walk up to first class and use their rest rooms. I hear they must let you if the toilets in economy are full.

On the way back I like to grab some of the cashews they have for 1st class only.

I did this once and the stewardess came up to me and asked if I had done so. I replied in the affirmative, to which she responded, “Now someone in 1st class will go without theirs…”
To which I replied, “Here, give them my prestzels.” And proceeded to hand her my tiny cheap ass bag of pretzels the airline had so nicely deigned to give me.

@davidbetterman On this, I agree with you. I hate first class. Even the name, a holdover from the days when classism was official, enforced, and accepted, reeks of the notion that certain people are better than others just because they have more money.

@Snarp @davidbetterman Well, they pay more so they get larger seats and more food. I agree the name is not very nice, first class, but if someone is paying for more servicce and comfort, then someone who is paying less should not be taking their food. As for the bathrooms, I think it should not be a big deal if people use the bathroom up front. If there is no line and you are in row 5, you shouldn’t have to walk all the way back 30 rows.

@davidbetterman I hope you dropped a deuce.

Interesting question. A similar situation occurred to a friend of mine a week ago during a return trip home from holidays. There was a large individual seated in front of her, and they had pulled back their chair to accommodate themselves. It was not entirely inconvenient to my friend, but she resented the seat being pushed back so far, especially as this was before take-off. She brought it to the attention of airline staff, who asked the individual to move their seat up for take off. The person was a little embarrassed and complied.

I don’t know how unsafe it would have been to do so, but if I were in the same position, I would tend to leave it alone to avoid embarrassing that person.

Generally speaking, if it was not entirely uncomfortable to accommodate someone so that they are more comfortable, I would do it. No big deal.

@siren I think you are saying the person in front of your friend had their seat reclined? This is a safety hazard. Take off and landing are the times most likely to have an emergency. If seats are reclined in front of you, then you have less space to get yourself out of your seat, into the aisle, and out of the plane.

Maybe this makes me obnoxious, but I won’t put the arm rests back down. For me, the arm rests mark the boundary between my seat and the next person’s seat. They don’t get to take space that I paid for.

With respect to the tall person behind me, I will try to accomodate them, but often I have to recline just slightly so my back doesn’t feel like someone hit it with a baseball bat. :-)

@JLeslie: Yes, I’m sure you’re right. That is the argument my friend made to me also. She was also complaining in general about overweight passengers on planes. If you are completely inconvenienced by a person near you on a plane that is one thing, but to say a person of a certain weight should not be able to fly at all, that is another, in my opinion.

@Siren I agree. I guess if you are beer belly big, it is different than wide big also. Still, your tummy would have to stick out pretty car to hit the seat in front of you, so I don’t see how reclining would help? I am more inclined to think that the woman in front just was a flying novice and didn’t realize she has to wait until after take off to recline.

I am with @Dr_Dredd . I will not put the arm up because I see that as my personal very small space. I always give up the armrest because I will not fight. I also do not recline out of more than just manners… also out of sympathy.

I am tall and one of those people whose knees are crushed when people try to recline, which they cannot do because my legs are so long. But… they keep trying and I cannot cut any inches off of my height, my apologies (I have been bitched at for that before).

It is hard for me to wedge myself in there so I do not drink anything for awhile before the flight in the hopes of not needing the Jaws of Life during a flight to cut me out of the seat before landing. By the time I have to move, my legs and hips have locked solid from being crammed in there without being able to move.

When was it ok for you to have to be jammed together? Where we are rubbing up against each other.
Those fuckers just snuck that one in on us.

It just pisses me off that the Airlines just don’t care. I have tolerated the smaller seats, and the snobby bitchy stewardesses..
But, when I fly I sleep. When every movement of the person next to me is felt because they are infringing into my space. I cant sleep and that honks me off.
That is why I will only fly if I get a window seat. At least I can jam myself against the window.

I feel for the the “larger than can fit in the seat person”. But it is not my problem and it should not be.

Fuck you airlines.

A person who pays for a seat implicitly has paid for the space between, but not necessarily including the arm rests. A person who extends beyond that implicit boundary is in violation of their neighbors contract and has over reached their own contract. The airline is the only reasonable enforcer of this contract. The airline must move the over-large individual or take them off the plane. Period. The fact is that seat backs are adjustable to incline backwards, thus no reasonable person can imagine that they are entitled to the space into which the seat can incline. At that point it is simply is a matter of individual courtesy, which in our time is in short supply.

I think if the person is too big for the seat they should pay for two. I’ve flown Southwest and the seats are narrower than some other planes on which I’ve flown. But still, a person would have to be really big to not be able to fit into one of them. I’ve never witnessed this person too big for a seat thing. I have been asked to raise the back of my seat a little. I did because I understand the problem for the guy behind me. Thank goodness all of the really long flights I’ve taken were on planes with more comfortable seating than the vintage carriers of Southwest.

“He countered by pointing out that he fit between the arm rests and was able to use a seatbelt without an extender”

This is a paltry manipulative excuse. Fitting between the arm rests and not needing a seat belt extender is fat guy talk. He might be able to get his butt in the seat, but if everything else is hanging over, he’s taking two seats and should pay for them.

A very tall person is another story. Yes, I would accommodate him by not reclining. But huge fat people should be required to buy two (or three) seats.

Because economy class is so terribly cramped, the general rule is that I not inconvenience anyone more than necessary. If I were supertall I feel it would be fair to ask people not to recline, because I have never felt that to be a particular right. Certain rows are unable to recline, and in any case you can’t lean back during take-off and landing. If only they’d put headrests on the sides of the chairs so your head wouldn’t droop when trying to sleep upright, that would make my life so much easier.

But I do feel that if I couldn’t fit between the armrests and asked people to keep the armrests up, that would be unfair, because that implies I’d be bulging over so much that I would actually be infringing on their personal space.

@plethora If he did not need a seat belt extender, then that does signify how big he is around the middle, doesn’t it? Although, like I said above there is beer belly fat, and wide fat. Not sure which he is? I guess the arm rests are more of an indicator of whether the person next to me is in my space or not.

@all but would you say that even if someone is not in your space, past the armrest for this discussion, isn’t it still uncomfortable to see someone large in the seat next to you? If they seem uncomfortable themselves? I was in a restaurant over the weekend and the tables were booths. Anyway, the table next to us (it was on the other side of an aisle, maybe 5 feet away, so not uncomfortably close in anyway) this guy walks over and joins someone at the table. The new guy can barely fit because his stomach reaches the table when sitting in the booth seat. I kind of feel bad for the guy at the time. If I was sitting with him or next to him, I would be a little uncomfortabe that he is uncomfortable. Mind you, I am pretty blind to weight, I don’t really have any prejudgment about heavy people, except aybe they eat too much or eat poorly, but even then I wonder if maybe they are on a medication that causes them to gain weight, but I don’t have any type of stereotype of what type of people they are. Anyway, this guy was not anywhere near anyone else. He was sitting at a four person table with no one next to him, and his friend sitting across the table, and still I though, ugh, he is too big for that booth, a regular table and chairs would be better for him. A little bit hard to watch.

I don’t know if I am making my point well?