Airline Consultant: Why don't we reduce seat pitch so much that the slightest recline causes people extreme discomfort but our profits will go up markedly?
Airline: But it may create fights on the plane.
Airline Consultant: Ah but we can set it up so people blame each other instead of the airline.
Airline: Genius. Ship it. But I'd like to note my concern that the public will see right through it.
Public: GARGLEFLARGELRAAAHRRRRGGGRAAAAHHHRRRR PUNCH PUNCH PUNCH
BTW I fly almost every week. I'm almost at a million miles flown. I'm not tall, about 5'10" average weight. I have been in the worst seats on the worst airlines. Often for between five to twelve hours.
Personally speaking, I'm barely ever bothered by someone reclining in economy, even if I'm in a seat that can't recline.
People kicking or bumping from behind is much worse. People encroaching LATERALLY into your space is vastly worse. I still find the fact that a morbidly obese person (requiring a lap belt extension should be a trigger) is allowed to sit in a seat they don't safely fit in to be a massive inconvenience for their seatmate - a potentially dangerous hazard in the event of an evacuation and an embarrassing public humiliation that they certainly don't enjoy - to be a crazy unsafe and mean spirited thing to do. The right compromise solution would be to discount the second seat. But they already eliminated discounts for kids decades ago so it's a nonstarter. But there should at a minimum be enforcement of the rules that exist. I do feel like shit that this is financially ruinous, but aside from the discomfort, it's literally not safe. I also see physically incapable people in exit rows all the time - kids, very elderly, etc. I get it. Attendants don't want to cause a scene and just want to take off and get there, but people have burned to death in otherwise survivable accidents.
I understand some people are more affected because they're bigger.
AND DON'T GET ME STARTED ON "EMOTIONAL ASSISTANCE ANIMALS" - as opposed to medically necessary trained animal companions. Someone already had their face mauled off because someone I suspect is
a liar didn't want to pay for cargo stowage for his giant ass Rottweiler mix (I believe he claimed it was like, a lab/cherub mix)- and doctors need to be prosecuted for giving lazy or selfish pet owner carte blanche to ruin a flight. If you have a properly diagnosed condition and a trained, appropriate animal (
not a goddamned peacock) then have at it. I'm your ally. Including psychological assistance. I've seen some INSANE arguments at the check in desk - once on a trip to Palm Springs, there were something like twenty pets in the waiting area and several owners arguing at the ticket desk - there's a strict and small limit on pets in the cabin - but the exception for real and fake assistance animals overrides it - but lots of owners show up without having filled out the paperwork and assuming all they need is the vest. In this case, they ALL got on. It was bedlam. Eventually (probably already) someone with a seeing eye dog or a much more vital trained companion, is going to get screwed by those people.
I won't be the only person in this thread who knows more than one acquaintance who takes advantage of this lax horseshit. I've given one friend an earful because her dog has already bitten two people. It has actually tried to bite me before because it's psycho. She's lucky it hasn't been put down and she KEEPS TRAVELING with it. She has no condition whatsoever and told everyone she just asked her doc to write a note.
FACT: People toot out silent rancid cruelty all the time, but the most common source of nose-violence is attendants cropdusting, and then leaving the passengers to glare at each other accusingly, their eyes watering angrily in the caustic colostomy cough.
FACT: The person who uses the bathroom before you is an escaped murderer who specialized in padded cell dirty protests and had five boiled egg kebabs and a gallon of Mr. Pibb for breakfast. Or an elderly man whose aging toilet parts have corroded into a rainshower head over the centuries.
FACT: If you try to get a better seat or upgrade or anything at all at the ticket desk, there's a USB orientation 50%* chance that you will interrupt an angry embittered thirty year employee who hates passengers more than anythinng on earth, regardless of how nice they are. If you encounter the Blue Meanie, then stop asking immediately, apologize and go a few counters down and ask another. Keep trying till you find the nice one. Her name is Lita. She is in a good mood because she's got a three day deadhead to Maui and her college GF is meeting her there.
FACT: Pilots who do jokes over the announcement system are functioning alcoholics who're only ever one tiny Gin bottle from mistaking a snow capped mountain for a cloud.
* 100%
/rant