Down with reclining seats in airplanes! Or, more to the point, up with them. Please sit up straight and pay attention while I make this very serious in-flight announcement: the airline industry should prevent all seats in basic economy from reclining until the general public has shown they know how to use them responsibly. And by “use them responsibly” I mean: don’t recline. Or, if you must, do so courteously and not for the entire flight.
Now, I understand a blanket ban might not be a popular solution. But it is the fairest and most utilitarian approach; whatever small degree of comfort you may achieve by being able to lean back a few inches is outweighed by the misery you inflict on the person behind you. Particularly if said person is trying to work on a laptop, eat a meal or nap on their tray table.
As you may have guessed, I am “said person”. Excuse me for airing my first world problems, but I recently had a miserable flight from London to Philadelphia because the person in front of me reclined as soon as we took off, and jiggled around violently in their seat for the next seven hours as if they had bedbugs. A model of passive-aggressive restraint, I didn’t go any further than muttering loudly. But if the trip had been any longer, there might have been an in-flight incident.
There have already been numerous air rage episodes sparked by reclining seats. A couple of months ago, a Delta Air Lines passenger was allegedly punched in the chest because of a reclining seat altercation. Along with alcohol, seat angles seem to be one of the largest contributing factors to trouble at 30,000ft. With air rage incidents on the rise in the US, surely a ban is a no-brainer.
Speaking of no-brainers, this feels like a job for Donald Trump. The Trump administration recently took management of Union Station, Washington’s main railway terminal, away from Amtrak. Surely our dear leader now needs to show the airlines who is boss? Trump has the power to fix our reclining seat crisis with just one phone call. Use that power, Mr President: bring peace to the Middle Seat. It may well be the thing that gets you a Nobel peace prize.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
