41 Percent of Fliers Think You’re Rude If You Recline Your Seat
I&#x27;d love to see this cross-referenced by leg length.<p>A lot of shorter people literally don&#x27;t seem to understand why reclining could be &quot;rude&quot; when as they like to parrot &quot;I paid for this seat! I&#x27;m entitled to!&quot; Try being someone with long legs and having the person in front of you bounce up and down on your knees for several hours, let me tell you, it is as fun as it sounds.<p>That being said, the problem isn&#x27;t with short people, or people who recline in general. The problem is with a race to the bottom that the government should have regulated several inches ago.<p>Airlines keep making their seat pitch (distance between your spine and the spin of the person in front) narrower and narrow, year upon year. It started out to add extras rows, now they just do it so they can sell that seat pitch back to people as &quot;Premium Comfort&quot; or &quot;Premium Economy.&quot;<p>Airlines are now only judged by the economy price on ticket comparison websites. So if one airline takes 2 inches of seat pitch but also reduces the price by $10&#x2F;flight, then another has to do the same to remain competitive.<p>Ultimately at some stage we need to just sit down and decide what the minimum seat pitch should be, and then have every airline in the country stick to that. It effectively ends the race to the bottom we have now, as there is now a lower bar (and one that doesn&#x27;t have passengers fighting in the isles about reclining).<p>I&#x27;d also like to see airline seats redesigned. They&#x27;ve barely changed in many years, and only one major company manufacturers them.<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independenttraveler.com&#x2F;travel-tips&#x2F;travelers-ed&#x2F;the-shrinking-airline-seat" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.independenttraveler.com&#x2F;travel-tips&#x2F;travelers-ed&#x2F;...</a>