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Space Invaders
The Travel Critic · July 6, 1998

So I'm wedged into seat 20F on an MD 80, waiting to take off from Dallas/Fort Worth last week, when suddenly it hits me: I asked for an exit-row seat, and I got this.

This isn't an exit-row seat. Not a real one. Yes, I see the escape hatch next to me, but there's no extra leg room like in row 21. What's more, my seat won't even recline. It's locked permanently at a torturous 35-degree angle.

Then I notice the passenger in 18F, after a nervous glance to make sure none of the flight attendants are paying attention, has edged her seat back. In response, the guy in front of me in 19F reclines all the way until I can feel the back of his seat pressed against my knees. I clear my throat politely. He ignores me. As my legs go numb, I can't help but feel like the proverbial wall stopping a cascade of falling dominos.

It takes a masochist to enjoy traveling in economy class these days. The seats are smaller than ever, the legroom is scarce. Passengers don't have any manners and the flight attendants serving them often don't care.

Airline execs, meanwhile, smugly say ridiculous things about customers caring more about cheap fares than comfort. (Try telling that to a frequent traveler who just paid full fare for a seat in sardine class.)

My run-in with the rude recliners had a happy ending-I'll get to that in a second-but disputes about etiquette aren't always resolved to everyone's satisfaction.

On a Virgin Atlantic flight from London to San Francisco last year, the passenger in front of Steve Stevenson, a retired photographer from Davis, Calif., leaned back all the way for the duration of the flight.

"When I indicated to the flight attendant that I was having difficulty eating and reading, she indicated that she would bring the situation to my fellow traveler's attention," he says. "But nothing was done."

Stevenson asks: "Short of reclining one's own seat, with the attendant danger of the dreaded 'domino' effect, how should this situation be handled?"

There's no simple answer, says former flight attendant Anne Sweeney, who recently penned an article about unruly passengers for Newsday. "I would hesitate to get into any contretemps with another passenger. Everybody is so trigger-happy and so rude these days."

And reclining's not the only issue. There's also the matter of seat-to-seat spillover. James B. Stacy, a consultant from Corona, Calif., explains. "The seats are now stacked so close together the passenger is now invading their neighbor, and if you are unlucky enough to be setting in the middle seat-well, then the invasion is twofold."

One reader, who described herself as a "tall female" said she dreads getting stuck in the middle seat between men "whose mothers, sisters, wives and/or girlfriends have not taught them how to sit properly within their 'space.'"

She calls the offenders "leg-sprawlers and armrest hoggers" and advises these travelers "not to get so relaxed that your legs start to encroach beyond the boards of your tray table."

Mary Kay Hanke, an international vice president at the Association of Flight Attendants, says these grievances aren't new. It's the frequency of the complaints, which are spurred by the smaller seats and crowded cabins, that is noteworthy.

There are only three times a flight attendant would intervene on a traveler's behalf. During takeoff and landing, when seats must be in an upright position. And when it looks like the World Wrestling Federation is coming to a seat near you.

"If there were an altercation between passengers over the seats," Hanke says, "we would do something."

You're probably wondering how I prevented a clash between 20F and 19F. I waited until the aircraft door closed and then vaulted into 21F, which was empty. My legroom doubled, I got away from the inconsiderate passenger, and I even had an empty seat next to me. Wrestling looks much better on television, if you ask me.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.