<p>A few weeks I was sitting at the gate waiting to board and overbooked flight–and some Obviously Very Very Very Important Person was trying to do some business deal on his phone, and began screaming at everyone around the area to shut up and stop talking because he couldn’t hear his phone and dammmitttt he was trying to get some work done…he really lost it. I really don’t want this person on his phone on the plane. I don’t want to feel like I can’t carry on a normal conversation with my husband because the person next to me is on the phone, I don’t want to hear the details of his business, and I certainly don’t want someone turning in to a raving lunatic either because he is not getting what he wants in the deal, or because he is upset that other passengers are continuing on in the normal course of their own conversations,etc…</p>
<p>The minute someone tells me, at a busy airport, to shut up so he can do some business deal is the minute I start a loud conversation about bunions with the person next to me.</p>
<p>If someone is telling me I need to be quiet in a public place because of their important phone call, the phone call better be something like, “Don’t worry that the landslide blocked the only road out. Now, take the head in your hands and slowly guide the shoulders out… Good, now wrap him up in a warm blanket… Can you see the second one’s head…”</p>
<p>LOL Cardinal…I wish. Just an hour ago I was backed into twice at the grocery store by the same woman on her cell phone. If they allow talking on cell phones on planes, where your personal space has been reduced to 2"beyond your body in every direction, I might need intervention.
Text all you want during landing and take-off(young men on my flights seem to have been doing this for the past year or so…) just shut the heck up. I’d rather deal with the serial farter than a cell phone talker.</p>
<p>I guess I’m a bad person… I recline my seat. But I do make sure it doesn’t seem to interfere with legroom or tray use behind me. In recent flights it’s just the difference of seatback to seatback. In the international flights I took last year, the seat just slid forward for the “recline” and didn’t impact other rows at all.</p>
<p>Maybe already covered, but I just flew US Airways and could keep the phone/ipad on in “airplane mode” and not shut down. And loved using DH’s Bose Noise Canceling Headphones to shut out other stuff.</p>
<p>You have paid for a seat that reclines. If someone uses one of these gadgets behind you, tell the flight attendant and it will be removed promptly. The person in front reclines, you recline, and so on, so your total space is the same.</p>
<p>Knee Defender-- I see, you don’t like the space the airline provides you, so you take some of the space of the person in front of you. Is there also an Elbow Defender, that encroaches into the seats beside you?</p>
<p>I have to say, I have only been on one flight where someone reclined their seat so far I could see the top of their head. I have sat next to Chatty Craigs though, & just put in my earbuds as self defense even though I wasn’t listening to anything.</p>
<p>I prefer the train, cause I can get something to eat or drink when I want, I can go to the observation car if I want to look out the window & I don’t have to worry about being seated next to the next Gerard Depardieu.</p>
<p>I’m going to assume this was back in the era of analog-only phones, but still, who would do this? You were ok with listening in on people’s personal phone calls?</p>
<p>As for phones on planes - eh, who cares? People are way too caught up in “omg, this new technology is going to be sooooo annoying to me”. Then they realize they want to use it, etc and get over it.</p>
<p>I usually don’t recline my seat because it’s not materially more comfortable anyway. However, sometimes I have to when the guy in front of me reclines his seat all the way back. If he reclines his seat fully, but I don’t recline mine, I’m lucky if I can even breathe in the space left to me. A sneeze would likely be fatal.</p>
<p>I’ve been in the last seat, which doesn’t recline–and had the person in front of me fully recline. If he also yaks on his phone, I might end up in prison.</p>
<p>There is nothing offensive about people reclining their seats. They are built to recline, and it is difficult to sleep sitting straight up. It is considerate if you don’t recline the seat fully, but if the person in front of you reclines, are you really not going to recline your seat back in order to sleep, to try to be considerate to the person behind you…who may not notice or care, or might have his seat fully reclined.</p>
<p>I’d be irritated at the airlines not putting enough space between the seats, not the person who utilizes his recline function. And if it bothers you enough, shell out the extra bucks for an exit row, economy comfort, or first class. Or fly all your trips on one airline and get status, or get the airlines preferred credit card.</p>
<p>I think the airplane should have only 2 sections: sleeping and non-sleeping. No first class, business, economy.
I hate to see the windows closed down on my flight. I always want to look down to see things on the ground. This is my travel enjoyment.</p>
<p>I flew from a small airport in Florida to a small airport in Maine yesterday. There were TWO stops on my journey. On the first leg, I had to sit next to a very large man. His elbows were definitely in my space.</p>
<p>I wanted to pay for “Preferred Access,” but the kiosk I checked in at was not able to take credit cards for some reason. So I went up to the desk and the guy said, “Well, I can’t complete that transaction here, but I can get you better seats for no charge.” So I got an exit row seat, then bulkhead seats for the other two flights. I have really long legs, so I was happy about that!</p>
<p>My last flight was delayed by an hour, because a panel next to the engine was falling off. I finally got home around midnight.</p>
<p>“Is there also an Elbow Defender, that encroaches into the seats beside you?”</p>
<p>Maybe in the future, we can all have little force fields around us for air travel that block out noise and light, and creeping elbows. And maybe even turbulence tossed ice cubes.</p>
<p>I don’t think the space is the same when everyone reclines. First of all, not everyone can. Not everyone wants to (especially when using your tray table), and worst of all, have you tried to stand up and leave the row when someone’s seat is reclined fully? You nearly have to grab that person’s head to do it properly!</p>
<p>I’m not a tall person, but I feel like the top of the person’s head is in my lap if they recline fully. I suppose I could sneeze in their direction a few times and scare them into rising back up. I’ve complained about a person who left their seat fully reclined for hours, even when they were eating and when they left their seat. The flight attendant made him raise his seat back up.</p>
<p>Not a flight, but last week at the Moda Center in Portland, I was standing next to a couple who were not only infringing into my space, but they were waving full beers around so precariously, that I feared it was only a matter of time before they spilled or passed out.</p>
<p>I complain about Key Arena not allowing drinks, but at least I wont have to worry about that tomorrow night.</p>
<p>I guess it is human nature to project that other people share your personal irritations. I would not recline in response to being reclined upon. Perhaps the cell phone talkers aren’t bothered by it so they don’t understand why others get upset. It’s only in this thread that I see that others consider the space they can recline into as their space. I wonder if there have been altercations over the kneeblocker thing. In my experience, not that many people recline fully, thus it stands out to me when they do. If I can’t use my tray table or lift my knees that person is reclined too far. My reclining my own seat wouldn’t help with those two issues anyway.</p>
<p>Of course the space I can recline into is my space. I bought that space when I bought a seat that reclines.</p>
<p>As to cell phone talkers, as others have pointed out, phone yakkers are so annoying to so many people that trains have phone cars and no-phone cars, like they used to have smoking cars and no-smoking cars.</p>