A Little Leg Room
A few years ago, I was on a flight from LA to Singapore (takes 16+ hours). I’m a tall dude—around 6’3″—so I don’t fit very well in economy class seats. On most planes, my knees are often very close or right up against the seat in front of me. This makes it impossible for the person in front of me to recline their seat, which usually isn’t a problem once the person in front of me sees how cramped I am in those tiny seats.
However, for this particular flight, the man in front of me was not having it. He tried to recline his seat, but couldn’t because my legs were there. He turns around and sees what’s happening and asks me something along the lines of, “Do you mind letting me put my seat back?” I respond with, “I wish I could but I physically can’t. I’ll do my best to give you as much space as I can, but it won’t be much.”
At this point, he starts to get angry and just starts pushing as hard as he can back on his seat. Needless to say, this was not particularly pleasant for me. I ask him to please stop, and he says, “I’ll stop when I can put my seat back.” I decide I’ll just wait him out; he’ll eventually get tired. After about 10-15 minutes of this, he calls a flight attendant over and proceeds to demand a new seat.
The flight attendant tells him there are no available seats and he will have to deal with it. Then he gets straight-up ridiculous. He demands to speak to the pilot. So the flight attendant goes up front to talk to the cockpit. Keep in mind that throughout this he is still pressing with all his might against my knees, with only short breaks to yell at the flight attendant.
After a couple of minutes, the co-pilot (he wanted to speak to the pilot and wasn’t happy about this) comes back and tries to explain to the man that he can’t change seats because there are no other coach seats free. The man continues to demand a seat that is able to recline, give me an upgrade, this is unacceptable, making a scene, etc. The co-pilot finally gives in and says while looking at the man, “Sir, would you like to sit up in business class?”
The man stands up and mutters something similar to, “Finally.” Oh, then it got so good. The co-pilot responds, “Sir, sit down. I wasn’t talking to you.” He turns to me and repeats, “How would you like a seat in business class?” I have, to this day, never seen someone as furious as the man as I walked past him to my new business class seat (with free drinks).