To Recline Or Not To Recline: The Airline Conundrum
One thing to remember about viral videos and photos: We almost never know what happened in the moments before someone switched on a camera and started shooting.
That missing piece of information can change everything.
Remember the Covington Catholic schoolboys? Jumping to conclusions about the young man who was smiling while a grizzled Native American man beat a drum in his face resulted in expensive lawsuits for several news outlets.
Likewise, the latest viral images - of two testy American Airlines passengers on a flight from New Orleans to Charlotte last month - is dividing the country into two camps: The Recliners and the Seat Beaters.
Is the woman who took the video at fault for reclining her seat? Or is the guy behind her wrong for repeatedly punching her seat back?
We don’t know the whole story. It looks like churlish behavior all around to me.
The woman in question is Wendi Williams - news reports say she’s a Virginia Beach teacher - who claims she put her seat in the upright position while the guy behind her was eating and reclined it again when he was finished.
He started hitting her seat in protest and she whipped out her cellphone and recorded his unhinged behavior.
An aside: The dude clearly has his tray table down. Doesn’t everyone know that airline trays are crawling with microbes? Dirtiest things on the planet. Eat on your lap, fliers. Unless you want to die.
I like to fly. And I, too, have my share of airborne horror stories.
There was the time two drunks boarded my aircraft in Atlanta and one vomited in the aisle delaying our takeoff by at least an hour, causing some of us to miss our connections. Good times.
I was on board a Delta flight from Norfolk to Atlanta in 2016 when a fire broke out a few rows behind me and for a few minutes it looked like we were going to be incinerated at 35,000 feet.
Then there was my most uncomfortable flight, when I shared a two-person row with a man who must have weighed 400 pounds. I was smashed against the window from New Orleans to Atlanta.
I thought the airline should have refunded half the cost of my ticket since I’d only had half a seat. Instead, Delta gave me a drink ticket.
That’s what American Airlines reportedly did in this most recent case. They gave the Seat Beater drink coupons, apparently taking the side of the rude dude drumming on the seat in front of him.
Meanwhile, a flight attendant reportedly threatened The Recliner for taking a video of a fellow passenger.
Sheesh.
This seems like a situation that could have been resolved amicably before it devolved into militant reclining and using a seat back as a snare drum.
Yet, as America picked sides in this air battle, Delta CEO Ed Bastian jumped in on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday, suggesting that passengers ask permission of the person in the row behind before reclining their seats.
Sorry, Bub, you should sit this one out. Preferably in one of your economy seats. You and your pals in the airline industry created these airborne Hunger Games by shrinking seat size and leg room, forcing folks in coach to fight for every inch of real estate.
“In the early 2000s, rows in economy used to be 34 inches (86 centimeters) to 35 inches apart; now 30 to 31 inches is typical, though 28 inches can be found on short flights,” Time reported in 2019. “Seats have narrowed, too, from about 18.5 inches to 17 inches on average.”
Greed caused the airlines to sacrifice comfort for sardine-seating. There’s nothing left for passengers in coach to do now but slug it out amongst themselves.
And pray that they’re the ones who win the drink tickets.
