To recline or not to recline. It’s the age-old debate that never ceases to cause disagreements between passengers stuck within close proximity, for long periods of time, inside a narrow metal tube in the sky.
The problem with airplane seat recline is a simple one that manifests itself in many other forms throughout society. When you recline your seat, you increase your own comfort… but at the expense of somebody else’s comfort.
At the same time, if airlines didn’t intend for seats to recline, they wouldn’t have built the functionality into the seat. On long-haul flights, most people expect that you’ll probably recline if you want to get some rest. So, what’s the best seat recline strategy?
Some ground rules of seat recline etiquette
First of all, when it comes to seat recline etiquette, most frequent flyers would agree on a few ground rules:
- It’s generally rude to recline your seat all the way back on short daytime flights (e.g. under 2 hours)
- You should not recline your seat while on the ground, nor during take-off or landing (the latter is a safety requirement anyway)
- You should bring your seat to the upright position during meal services so the passenger behind you can eat
- On overnight and long-haul flights, reclining is generally acceptable outside of the times mentioned above
- You are allowed to ask the person in front to move their seat forward if you can’t get out without grabbing their seat
- If there is nobody sitting behind you, reclining is fair game – put your seat as far back as you want!
Different strategies for reclining on long-haul flights
So, with those ground rules out of the way, let’s go straight to a hypothetical scenario where most people would agree it’s OK to recline…
You’re on a long-haul overnight flight in Economy (sorry, that upgrade didn’t come through this time!). There are no empty seats, so finding a row to lie down across is not an option. The dinner service has just finished, the cabin lights are getting dimmed and breakfast is still hours away.
Most people want to try to sleep at this point – including you – and you want to recline your seat. What’s your strategy?
As research for this article, I asked the AFF moderators – all experienced flyers – what they would do in this scenario. Interestingly, there isn’t one universal answer on the right etiquette for this situation.
Checking with the person behind you
One approach is to tell the person behind you in advance, warning them before you recline your seat.
Whether this should be phrased as a question or a statement is debatable. Most agree that it might be best not to frame this as a question if you don’t want to hear the real answer to “would you mind if…”. 😉
But most people will accept that you want to recline and will at least appreciate that you warned them. This gives them a chance to prepare – for example, by taking the opportunity beforehand to use the bathroom, or by moving their things off the tray table.
In my opinion, this is probably the most thoughtful method of the lot. But it doesn’t seem to happen often. In fact, I honestly can’t recall a time anybody sitting in front of me has ever directly communicated with me about reclining their seat.
Checking what’s going on behind you
A few moderators use a similar approach to the above, but without directly talking to the passenger behind. Instead, they’ll at least quickly check what the person behind is doing, and assess what the impact would be if they reclined at that moment.
For example, if the passenger behind was using a laptop, eating or had an infant on their lap, they would refrain. But if that person had themselves already reclined, the moderators would feel less hesitant about doing the same.
Moving your seat back in small increments
Some people adopt the strategy of moving the seat back only a little bit at a time, at regular intervals a few minutes apart, so that it’s not as noticeable to the person behind. After an hour or so, your seat will be fully reclined anyway – but you feel less bad about it.
Just shoving the seat all the way back
None of the AFF moderators do this, but a common approach I’ve seen is one that doesn’t consider the person sitting behind at all. Many people simply press the recline button, without warning the passenger behind, and then leaning as far back as the seat will go.
This efficient method requires no awkward social interactions. It’s also the most likely to annoy the person sitting behind you – and immediately spill any drinks they may have on their tray table. That’s a pretty quick way to create an enemy out of a fellow passenger!
Avoiding reclining altogether
There are plenty of selfless souls out there who just avoid reclining altogether, even if they want to, out of consideration for other people… or fear of social judgement. Perhaps they’re too embarrassed to ask the person behind, or want to maintain the social harmony on board by avoiding creating a potential source of conflict.
If you’re in this category, the frequent flyer community thanks you for your service! But seriously, it is OK to recline sometimes on long-haul flights, if you use the right etiquette. 😉
Choosing the last row
Probably the best strategy, if you do have to fly Economy, is to choose the last row of the cabin. This guarantees that you’ll have nobody sitting behind you. So, you can recline guilt-free… assuming there isn’t a wall directly behind your seat preventing this!
What’s your seat recline strategy? Let us know on the AFF forum!
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