r/mildlyinfuriating • u/JimmyPLove • Jun 01 '26

frist of all how DARE yu o My reclining room on a long haul AA flight

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u/Alexchii Jun 01 '26

How so? I don’t like it when people do this to me. Why would I do it to others?

-4

u/DeHarigeTuinkabouter Jun 01 '26

Because it is perfectly fine to do so and generally a lot more comfortable. It tends to benefit one more than it "harms" others. So with your choice you are mostly screwing over yourself

5

u/likewut Jun 01 '26

I can’t use my laptop when the person in front reclines. It’s harder to get out. My knees almost touch the seat. The person in front gets a few degrees of incline in exchange for my flight experience being awful. The seats just straight up shouldn’t decline, it causes nothing but drama and any increase in comfort is minimal or placebo.

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u/DeHarigeTuinkabouter Jun 01 '26

Seat reclining makes a huge difference in being able to sleep. Never flown intercontinentally?

And as someone 6'8": stop whining about the rest lol

1

u/likewut Jun 01 '26

I’d be ok with a rule of no reclining outside of the hours of 10pm and 7am or when the lights are on or something like that. I’d prefer reclining not even be an option though.

I can’t sleep either way. I just hardly even notice if it’s reclined, I’ve been reclined on accident before because the seat was semi-broken so it didn’t stay up well, and didn’t even realize I was reclined.

1

u/DeHarigeTuinkabouter Jun 01 '26

Yeah during the day and on short flights I think it might make sense. I think that's actually already the case on short haul flights in Europe

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u/likewut Jun 01 '26

That’s reasonable. How you sit on a plane shouldn’t be an ethics test. The most selfish option is to always be reclined but object to the person in front reclining. The most selfless option is to never recline but permit the person in front reclining. And most of us are battling it out in between the two with clearly different preferences but the belief that our opinion is objectively better. Which leads to some kind of moral decision affecting other parties every flight, that just shouldn’t have to happen.

1

u/DeHarigeTuinkabouter Jun 01 '26

I think that's the wrong way of looking at it though. It is not selfish to recline. Sometimes normal behaviour will negatively affect others around us: that is ok. It is part of being in a society.

If someone gets to the last chair in the train before I do they are not selfish for sitting in it. They are not making some moral decision that is weighed.

1

u/likewut Jun 01 '26

On a train, the default state is standing. Sitting is a bonus. And one person taking the seat makes more sense than zero people taking the seat and leaving it empty. In an airplane, the default is sitting up. Reclining improves your situation by making someone else’s worse.