A right to recline

The reduction of seat pitch over the years is a by-product of the transformation of air travel. Where a sleeper cabin once existed on flying boats, a dozen fare paying passengers can now be accommodated. Except in a small percentage of cases, airliners are no longer designed as a form of luxury travel. They are designed to offer speed, frequency and convenience at the lowest possible price. The drive for ever-lower fares has been driven by the internet-surfing public – the same travelling public that are first to complain when the niceties of air travel are eroded or their legroom shrinks.

Aircraft manufacturers and airlines alike struggle to balance their cabins between profit margins and passenger surveys. It’s a tough call, but having flown around Europe and the Americas, I can assure Australian air travellers that they have a very good product with more legroom than most. Still, it is from this shrinking environment that these seat limiting devices were born and now the questions are being raised.

From seats to engines, everything used in an aircraft has to meet aviation standards of quality and compliance. They are subsequently registered, tagged, inspected and maintained to meet these standards.

What process have these devices been subject to in their design process before they are attached to an aircraft? And if they were to produce them to an ICAO standard or something similar, you can bet cheap knock-offs from eBay are only minutes away.

When you bring something on board it has to be compliant with the regulations, whether you are fitting an oxygen bottle for travel, a car seat or a guide dog. There are procedures set down that take into account such eventualities as impact and evacuation. Passengers can’t simply board an aircraft and start redecorating – emergency egress and other matters need to be considered.

Anecdotally I would also suspect that taller, larger folks are the most frequent users of these devices. Immediately a potential physical imbalance is established when a towering 190cm frame hands granny a card saying that she won’t be reclining her seat in the next few hours. Isthat really fair when she has purchased a ticket too? Was her boarding pass endorsed “NON-RECLINING”? We now have a situation where one passenger is determining the conditions of travel for another. They are conditions that were not stated at the time of purchase, on the boarding pass or even as the passenger took their seat. These restrictions were even unknown to the airline and the operating crew. One wonders if this could potentially open a Pandora’s box of precedents.

If these folks desire their space so much, then maybe they can pay a premium. Perhaps they can sit in the last row and the row in front could be sold as non-reclining at a cheaper fare subsidised by those who would otherwise wheel-clamp their seats. This way the boarding pass reflects the nature of the seats and the airlines know what’s going on onboard their aeroplanes. Asking these ‘seat back vigilantes’ to pay for their convenience might be met with a less than enthusiastic response I suspect.

However, beyond such solutions, the core issue remains. Economy air travel is exactly as the name states: economy. Low-cost air travel has enabled a huge portion of the population to travel by air that once could never have dreamed of it. The downside is that everything comes at a price and seat pitch falls squarely under that category. The expectations of yesteryear need to be shed for the realities of today.

And as human beings we need to show a little tolerance. Sure, being confined in an airborne tube with limited room to move is not necessarily conducive to neighbourly harmony, but we have to try. For the duration of the flight we are all in it together, so some degree of give and take is not advisable, it is imperative. It is not only considering whether you really need to recline your seat the entire way back, but whether your iPod volume needs to be set to 437? Do you have to thump out a tune on the arm rest or heave on the seat in front every time you stand up to go to the bathroom? Air rage incidents are the result of many simmering issues and the use of these legroom devices is only set to exacerbate the tension. When the emotions spill over, no-one truly benefits. People and property get damaged, flights are diverted and the Federal Police are called. Innocent lives are disrupted and the airlines are left to foot the bill as the handcuffed passenger still pleads for cheaper fares.

This ugly side of air travel has grown from more people travelling and in turn, an angry minority wanting more for less. When they can’t get a limousine ride for a cab fare they will blame anyone from the pilots to the passenger in front leaning back. We’ve all been there and we don’t enjoy the ride, but that’s not an excuse to lash out or impede upon the rights of others. Even when we are wedged in like sardines, we are travelling at nearly the speed of sound and crossing the globe in a day. That a large percentage of the population can afford to do that should be celebrated, not destroyed in acts of anger at 38,000 feet.