<p>I would need heroin to sedate me if I was on a flight for 11 hours.
I can barely tolerate one of five hours, and that is with much teeth gnashing.
I think I have claustrophobia. Thankfully all my flights have been voluntary.</p>
<p>I rarely recline my own seat but I absolutely understand that the agreement passengers make when flying is to be able to recline. So I may not be thrilled when the person in front of me reclines, but that’s how it works so I deal with it.</p>
<p>Teri - that’s just plain gross!!! Yuck. How unsanitary. No matter how well one washes her hands, unless they are scrubbing for surgery, there is always stuff under the nails. Double yuck. I would have said something politely asking her to stop the activity. Why do people think that it is ok to work on their nails in the “privacy” of their cubes at work or among strangers on a plane or a bus? </p>
<p>“the other hand, I am often seated behind passengers who do recline to the extent that I literally cannot reach down to get anything from my pocketbook on the floor. I am relatively small but I am not a contortionist.”</p>
<p>Sure you can. You temporarily have to invade the space of the person next to you, who understands that you may have to “dip” into them sideways. You smile, and say excuse me, and make a little joke out of how familiar you are getting with them, and they smile back at you and say go ahead, they totally understand, you dip down and retrieve your handbag or whatever, and everyone just moves on with their day. Everyone knows that that’s just part of the deal of flying in close quarters, and normal people are going to smile, maybe reach down for you if they’re able to reach your things and you aren’t. THAT’S how grown-ups handle things. Not sitting there and pouting or becoming confrontational. </p>
<p>Carl Hiassen’s Sunday column on the subject had a good suggestion. :))
</p>
<p>Or… " Gee honey, don’t you feel so proud that we spent time helping to care for Ebola victims in Africa?"</p>
<p>Haha, jym…I was just thinking something along those lines. Mention Ebola and suddenly the passenger would have a LOT of room!</p>
<p>Yep, CTTC, guess that would be rewarding on many levels-- feeling good about helping others and being rewarded with LOTS of room on the plane :)</p>
<p>I would love to know why it is that I havent encountered a single one of you “I never recline” people on any of the flights I have taken. I can’t think of a time when the person in front of me hasn’t reclined his seat. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to stop that. I see it as my problem. </p>
<p>^Good point, 3girls!</p>
<p>OK. Gripe time about Global Entry. Did not get TSA Pre designation on my boarding pass, so now am standing in long security line. What the…</p>
<p>GMT, I thought TSA Pre was automatic with global entry. That’s one of the main reasons I was thinking of getting it for my H. I may rethink that. </p>
<p>We dragged ourselves up to get the tsa pre-screening approval and we have NEVER been able to get it on our tickets. My daughter seems to get it all the time and didn’t even fill out the forms.</p>
<p>My kids get it all the time too, and they’re not subscribed to any program. Maybe it’s bcs they’re minors? I see no rhyme or reason in who gets it now.</p>
<p>Guess I will have to just content myself w cutting the immigration line when I enter the US.</p>
<p>@Eyeamom-
Have you been providing your TSA-pre number when you book your flights? If not, that might be the problem.</p>
<p>“Once approved as eligible for TSA Pre✓™, the enrollee must enter the provided KTN in the ‘Known Traveler Number’ field when booking travel reservations on any of the ten participating airlines. The KTN also can be added when booking reservations online via a participating airline website, via phone call to the airline reservation center, or with the travel management company making reservations. Additionally, the KTN can be entered in participating airline frequent flyer profiles, where it will be stored for future reservations.”</p>
<p><a href=“TSA PreCheck® | Transportation Security Administration”>http://www.tsa.gov/tsa-precheck/application-program</a></p>
<p>@GMTplus7-
One of my kids get it all the time too. She likes to gloat about me holding her back. 
My husband already has Global Entry status and it makes things much quicker. We have an appointment for the rest of the family to have our interviews next month. We’ll have to go an hour and a half away because our local field office has a 9 month backlog.</p>
<p>I must have “back-of-the-plane-next-to-the-lav” karma this week… oh well, at least this initial segment to JFK is a short hop.</p>
<p>The next segment is going to be beaucoup painful: 14 hours in steerage class to asia, and nor even economy plus. Will anesthetize w 2nd and 3rd helping of fine box wine, put fresh AAA batteries in my noise-cancelling earphones, snap on neck pillow, don eyeshade, and RECLINE…</p>
<p>It frosts me that they just randomly let people into TSA Precheck when I paid money and gave up a Sunday afternoon to get it. The whole POINT is to keep it selective so the TSA Precheck lines stay short and easy to pass through. It’s bad enough that Premier lines don’t mean much anymore. </p>
<p>Steerage to Asia? Is this personal or business? If business, I feel sorry for you if your company isn’t paying you in international business class! I say recline all you like on a flight like that.</p>
<p>Make sure your KTN (known traveller number) is listed with all the airlines you fly with. I fly mostly with United and found out the hard way on the few times I’ve taken an American flight that it won’t give me TSA Precheck unless I file my KTN with AA’s frequent flyer program. </p>
<p>“I would love to know why it is that I havent encountered a single one of you “I never recline” people on any of the flights I have taken. I can’t think of a time when the person in front of me hasn’t reclined his seat. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to stop that. I see it as my problem.”</p>
<p>I do too. It never would have occurred to me to try to “prevent” the person, to block his descent, kick his chair, or say anything to him. </p>
<p>Global entry doesn’t mean that you’re going to get TSA precheck, I don’t think. That’s a separate deal. You may have gotten pre-check before because you had status on a certain airline. Delta arranged for us to have pre-check privileges, but I believe that deal is either gone or going away. My pre-check privileges with them disappeared way before my childrens. It was irritating that they could whisk on through, and I couldn’t. But I paid $85, and did the application process for five years of pre-check. Now I get it on every airline I fly with, though I have to make sure my known traveler number is entered when I check in.</p>
<p>Very irritating that many of the people that go through pre-check have no idea what to do, and really hold up the line. I think they are allowing way too many people to go through it now, and its not the great deal that it was.</p>