A passenger on American Airlines flight 91 from London Heathrow to Chicago on Sunday says that they found themselves in an altercation with the woman seated behind them, whom they dubbed a “Karen.”
The top tier Executive Platinum member redeemed 27,000 AAdvantage miles to fly home on the new Boeing 787-9P in economy after a 72 hour visit to London for a wedding. They were seated in an aisle seat in regular economy – not even extra legroom Main Cabin Extra. He was exhausted and reclined his seat slightly. But something seemed wrong with the brand new aircraft? No, it was the woman behind him, a “mid-50s Karen” who was fighting him on recline because it was intruding on her space to work.
SLAM. My seat rockets forward like it’s spring-loaded. “New plane, maybe a mechanical issue?” I think, trying again. SLAM.
I turn around to discover I’ve apparently disturbed the natural habitat of a mid-50s Karen who informs me that her “work” is infinitely more important than my need for sleep. Because nothing says “critical business operations” like a cramped economy seat on a transatlantic flight.
He sought out help from a flight attendant who, he says,
- thanked him for his loyalty as an Executive Platinum member
- Offered help.
The flight attendant reportedly tried to reason with the other passenger, but she declared him “childish” for involving crew in the dispute and refused “to even let the [flight attendant] demonstrate the recline because she “will not tolerate” such an egregious assault on her workspace.”
So the flight attendant offered a solution – moving him to an empty seata in premium economy. The woman behind him was apoplectic: she “practically shrieks that SHE should get the upgrade since she needs ‘more space to work.'”
Freed of the passenger reclining back into her, the man now in premium economy says she “‘worked’ for exactly 20 more minutes before giving up entirely.” I’m not sure I’d have gone back to monitor her, to be honest. I’d have just taken the win. Although it seems to me that American should have upgraded the Executive Platinum member into premium economy if there was an empty seat.
However, he applauds American for doing “something right” and wanted to highlight it, saying he was “10/10 [happy to] get bullied by a Karen again if it means free upgrades.”
Seat recline is important for passengers on long flights with poorly-padded seats. Recline works to distribute passenger weight and reduce back stress. Reclining is also a basic right when it’s a feature of your seat (certain airlines like Spirit and Frontier feature seats they call “pre-reclined” i.e. that do not recline).
- A passenger controls their own seat
- Airlines ban the Knee Defender device, which prevents recline – a device was designed to stop reclining. While their interest is prevent damage to the seat, they do not allow the passenger seated behind to interfere with the recline function
There is an etiquette to exercising your right to recline, though. Don’t recline during mealtime. Try not to recline unless it serves a real purpose (if it doesn’t actually benefit your comfort, don’t recline).
Ultimately you need to buy the space that you want, ask politely that passengers around you conform to norms, and if they don’t get a crewmember involved. You can also consider a Coasian solution: you each have an initial set of rights and they can impede on each other’s preferences, so find a (cash) bargain.
What a (inset descriptive here). So sick of entitled people thinking that nothing matters but themselves. Anymore I call out the bad behavior directly and unapologetically.
If I were that FA I would have found the one child on the obsessed with kicked the seat in front of them and seated them right behind Karen. She needs to be held accountable for her behavior and shown what inconvenience looks like.
Reminds me of that story about a young model complaining saying “I refuse to sit next to an unattractive old person,” so the airline upgraded that unattractive old person to first class.
Someone named Karen was complaining about the ‘Karen meme’ on another recent post. Hope she sees this one and is frustrated again. Teehee.
The right move – get the crew involved
And kudos to that flight attendant
Ultimately, this is AA’s fault. Why? Because they have so limited personal space that the act of someone slamming their seat into your lap to “rest” becomes an unprovoked attack. I usually revel in ridiculing Karens, but in this case, I’d push back on the guy too, as a survival instinct.
But ultimately, it’s AA’s greed that causes this. It’s an 8-9 hour flight, so this is a significant issue.
Economy seats are NOT made for working on a laptop. So if working on your laptop is that important buy PE or Business. If he’s an EXP another fail on that fact that he should have been upgraded into any empty PE seat. Another reason NEVER, EVER depend upon a GA doing the right thing. Know what’s open so that you can go up to the GA point out that a PE seat is open and at least will they come get you onboard if it remains open. (Not sure how that works but presumably if there’s another EXP with a higher 12 month trailing spend they’d get that seat).
There is no free upgrade from economy to PE (or PE to Biz) on transatlantic flights for EXP or any other “normal” status. (Not speaking for CK.) That’s never been a policy. (Although you could use 500 mile coupons back in the day.) My son has gotten upgrades on BA on BA metal as a BA Silver, but that seems to have involved either weight balancing or oversold situations. With AA, you want an upgrade, you pay.
@George
This was an international flight, have you ever held elite status on a US airline before? Complimentary upgrades are typically only within North America, except for certain situations for operational reasons.
Happy to help educate 🙂
Plot twist. Lady was his wife and this is a hack to get an upgrade for one of them. Roles were reversed on the out bound. 2 different PNRs also.
Had an experience in FC on United where the fellow behind him kept kicking my seat
I did not engage with him
Got the the FA and explained situation
The offender said he was tall and needed the full length to stretch out
I hadn’t reclined my seat
Kickin stopped- thanked flight attendant
Too many rude people about today
I think it is unconscionable for the blogging public to persist in using someone’s name as a diatribe. Please don’t keep perpetuating this.
I agree with 1990 (a certain location has just frozen over), good use of the term “Karen”.
@Mike P — And hell will indeed freeze over because I’m all for #47 ending Iran as we know it, directly or indirectly. Unless that is, you’re one of these JD Vance noninterventionist losers.
@1990
A big problem is the US is too weak. Unlike Star Trek, where they can blast away and win within 45 minutes, America cannot. America is stronger than most countries but still cannot takeover a country unless the country has less than a million people, like Grenada. America cannot cause Iran to forget how to build the bomb, either.
How did he know her name was Karen? Did she introduce herself?
Gary!; your suggestion of cash compensation to settle the matter contributes to the “:Ugly ignorant of manners American that buys everything with money” reputation, that generates rejection in the rest of the world.
1990, I’m sure there are many folks among the 90 or so million people in Iran who disagree completely with the religious extremists running the country just as there are millions here who are not in favor of a ignorant Felon running the US. So before you endorse the annihilation of another country, make sure you are prepared to take the considerable fallout when it arrives at your doorstep.
Not exactly sure what that has to do with Karen’s inconsiderate behavior though. Other than to demonstrate there are entitled a$$holes in abundance on all American airlines these days.
An aircraft is for travel, your seat, regardless of class is not your office. If you can’t work on your flight for whatever reason than it sucks to be you. Deal with it in your mind but leave me and MY seat out of your solution. Delta 3 million miler
I’m a softie, but I usually look behind me to see what the situation is. If in doubt, I inform the person I’m going to recline. I will insist if it’s important to me, but I won’t be obnoxious about it. I want to try to make the world less stressful, not more stressful.
It is not the Karen’s problem, it is the airline’s. They know most of us will not care if we have 4 inches of seat separation and are stacked double-deck in the normal airplanes.
They force us to lift 40-pound “carry-ons” into the coat rack above a seat rather than storing them for us in the luggage hold built into every airliner, even though it dramatically increases boarding and deplaning times. And gets them an additional 20% of the airfare.
The whole idea of making coach as unpleasant, almost unbearable as possible is to get us to spend from three times to six times as much to get into “business” or “first”.
The complainer is correct — even a slight recline is a disaster to the person behind, particularly when working on a computer.
The person insisting on reclining seems just as entitled as the lady who insisted she had work to do and wanted them to not recline. Both people had legitimate needs and the person reclining seemed to start with the assumption that their need was important, and that the other person’s wasn’t as important. I would prefer seats that don’t recline so that this issue doesn’t arise.
Hey Tom Mariner… buy more space or charter your own jet, you entitled jerk. And check your luggage if you don’t want to be forced into hefting 40 pounds above your head. Or don’t fly at all. Take a bus. Or a boat.
Even AA domestic first is a problem to work if passenger in front reclines. My experience – you can’t even open or close the tray table without person raising seat. For regualar coach – airlines should lock to have no recline – the the rows in front of exit rows. Solution is maybe pre-fix all coach seats with a slight incline and lock it in place.
Agree though – don’t expect to be able to use a laptop in coach on an international flight.
The recline situation on those newer planes is ridiculous. You need to do your homework and pick appropriate accommodations if it bothers you that much. Hare the game and not the player.
My hat’s off to that AA flight attendant and the way they handled the situation. This should be a teaching moment for all of the other flight attendants out there at AA. Good job.
I can’t believe that the article suggests paying someone off to be able to recline their seat. That is absolutely nuts. It sucks when you’re working and someone reclines, but expecting someone to pay someone is absolutely bonkers and what is wrong with America.
“A passenger controls their own seat.”
And a passenger also controls the space immediately in front of their face.
The passenger making a scene here is in no way in the right. You’re not using a laptop in economy. But rationalizing and normalizing being a jerk to the person behind you is not ok. If you’re going to recline, at least have the common freaking courtesy to let the person behind you know. Everything is too cramped already as it is. And better yet? Don’t recline.
The decline in seat pitch is not AA’s (or other airlines’) greed; it’s “our” fault. AA tried to offer greater seat pitch before, but “we” weren’t willing to pay for it, so it went away. Great local pizza is going away because consumers are balking at paying prices higher than the chains charge using their inexpensive ingredients. AA would gladly remove a row or two from a 737/320, but only if their revenue per flight remains about the same. Consumers who skip past a $270 airfare with 31″ pitch because the $265 fare with 29″ pitch sounds like a better deal are the cause. (I use quotes around our and we because the problem is unlikely to be people here.)
The industry has reduced row spacing (“pitch”) so drastically that Economy is uncomfortable for my 6’3″ / 205# body even before reclining is permitted. On one AA long-haul flight, a 5’8″ male insisted on his 100% recline that required me to splay my legs for 6 hours. Explain that as being “OK” on any terms. We’ve been to 71 countries and try to fly Prem Econ for this reason, but it’s not always available. The best solution, nearing implementation by several major carriers, is to reduce the max Econ recline to 2-4″. Count me in.
I don’t get it. “Reclining is a total disaster?” “I’d smack the seat too out of survival?”
I’m hardly a million miler but I’ve flown enough times — and I’ve had the person in front of me recline. And I always recline. The reclined seat doesn’t come up high enough to hit your knees for most people. If you’re one of those people… well I dunno what to tell you. Pay more for more legroom. I mean we have people demanding overweight passengers buy two seats? So why not make tall people buy upgrades?
Maybe I’m just an ignorant hick because I normally fly Southwest (the only real option in my home city) who offers more pitch than most to begin with— but it’s not that big of a deal people. Is it super comfy? Well, no. But is it really the disaster people make it out to be? Of course not.
Sorry, economy seats are tight enough without the person in front reclining. It blocks my view of the in-seat entertainment and is horribly uncomfortable. Sit up, shut up and bring a neck pillow
So the passenger slamming the seat forward got her way because passenger who was there was moved elsewhere. She was shut down by giving in to her.
I usually don’t recline because I don’t want to impose on anyone or create conflict, and honestly I’m a bit scared of how unhinged people can be. But, reclining is a feature of the seats and it’s not for me or anyone else to decide how another person uses the features of the seat they paid for.
If you want more leg room, then purchase it. Also, on a long haul flight, I’m reclining when I’m ready to sleep or my legs are going numb. I will wait for your meal to finish and gladly un-recline if you need to exit your seat, but I’m not sitting upright the entire time because you didn’t anticipate your own needs and figure out a solution.
@Joyce — Nice strawman. Sure, you got me… go ahead, kill all 90 million… (of course not! ‘Some, I assume, are good people…’)
Nuclear disarmament and prevention, even regime change, doesn’t have to include the slaughter of every last civilian, though with that regime, they and their proxies tend to love to put civilians out front for the spectacle. So, if I were living in Iran these days, I’d take an extended vacation to Turkey…
@derek — Believe me, I wish we could all just ‘live long and prosper,’ but, unlike the Vulcans who prefer logic to emotion, we experience a mix of both. This isn’t a hunger strike. We’re not practicing ‘non-violent civil disobedience’ in geopolitical conflict.
As to the US, we are most certainly not ‘weak,’ though our foreign adversaries would be fools to mistake our passionate internal debates as such.
Our military can manage multiple conflicts all around the world at the same time, yes, even with the Fox News Anchor as the figurehead of the armed services (sheesh).
Our country can and will support its allies, even if it takes us time and a little convincing. We still defend the free peoples of the world (and our friends.) That said, we’re not perfect, and some folks are definitely gonna get hurt, like usually. Still, don’t let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of good. Russia, Iran, the CCP, and North Korea are not our ‘friends.’
There are a lot of people who fit is smaller seats so they are the passengers that many airlines are trying to attract with their narrow seats and short pitches. Because they can fit more passengers in a given area, they can be profitable with a lower cost per seat. The more extreme examples of this are ultra low cost carriers (some of which were profitable until Covid-19). Some of it is greed by the airline and some of it is survival. Since there are usually competitors who provide a slightly different product, I usually pick one of those for a more comfortable coach seat. I don’t see it as greed on the part of individual passengers.
@Richard Harris: Okay “Dick”
Tom and jns are right, this problem is created by airlines trying to get more efficient at the cost of passenger discomfort. We can handle this with government regulations, just like we do with many other things in our life. If government will not regulate then market will, but as you can see, current market is not in passenger’s favor. The idea that a passenger’s space should be controlled by the passenger only works until the last row which doesn’t recline.
I wonder about the sort of person who uses my name, Karen, as an epithet. Are they the sort of person who routinely says rude, insulting and malicious things right to a person’s face, and then responds “what’s the matter? Can’t take a joke?” if they get called on it? Mike P, for instance, is named after an angel of God, a sacred name in the Judeo-Christian religions. I doubt anyone would take up an effort to have the name Michael associated with vile, unkind and vicious behavior. “1990” is unlikely to be that person’s given name so they have shielded themselves from being associated with vile, unkind and vicious behavior. Undoubtedly, character assassination is much more satisfying when there’s no chance of having to answer for it. “1990” even admits knowing that it’s offensive to those of us named Karen, but enjoyed attacking us anonymously with enthusiasm. Richard Harrison and “Joanne,” I appreciate you and the people who are as sensitive and compassionate as you are, more than you can know.
Karen R-S
Flew on Lufthansa from PHL to FRA. 2-3 year-old child behind me decides to kick the seat for an extended period. Parents were sitting one row back and let their 2 children sit alone in the 2 seats at the side while the sat in the center seating area. Asked FA to have parents stop child from kicking my seat. Parents were entitled military family and mom said loudly “what do you want me to do, cut off his legs.” I said, “yes, if that would stop your child from kicking my seat. other passengers thought the family was in the right. Totally exhausting how people are such total asshats when they travel with their bratty kids.
i was in PE window on an airfrance flight and the person in front of me reclined. i was not able to get out of my seat to use the restroom. physically there was not enough space to get out. i had to wake her to ask her to put her seat up so i could get out of my seat. that is an engineering problem.
I’m Dick. My brothers are Willie and Peter. And, my sister is Fanny. The four of us as do sad that Karen’s have to suffer this slight that we never have experienced.
I am 6‘4“ tall, not freakishly tall but certainly a good height. I have trouble sitting in some economy seats now, even when the seat in front is upright. It has happened that I have cracked the plastic of the seat in front with my knees as I wedge myself in. I have a little sympathy for airlines who are concerned about protecting their seats.
Well, not that this has anything to do with the subject (to which I just say a pox on both of their houses), but since it’s been raised:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/15SuAHQyAn/
@ Tom Mariner
If you need to work then buy the seat to work at. I have no more sympathy for someone trying to work in economy than i do someone trying to “work” on a city bus.
But lets be real, your attempt to blame the airlines circled back around to boomer logic pretending to justify Karen while blaming the recliner for also using the space he paid for. May you sit 90° upright for the rest of your days.
@Karen R-S — Guilty. ‘1990’ is not my given name. For a Karen, you may actually onto something… *wink*
The passenger in front of me won’t be able to recline more than maybe an inch anyways due to my knees being in the way since I’m on the taller side, I’m not moving my legs to an uncomfortable position to accommodate you
At least twice a year I fly transatlantic.
I never recline my seat.
I just can not get comfortable in a reclined seat, I used to, when there was more room between the rows and when the seats had more padding in them, but with the way the airline seats are now, I gain no comfort by reclining so I just sit upright the entire long flights. My husband is upright also for at lest 75% of the time.
It’s kind of hard when the person in front of you reclines and you stay un reclined but that is their right to recline so I never say anything. I do have to grab the top of their seat to rise up to standing, but that is only momentarily, and nobody has ever complained about it. On that note they never un recline either when I am getting up to use the bathroom and I grab the top of their seat. That would be nice, but nobody ever does it. We all just have to kind of struggle through nowadays. I am sure the people who sit behind me appreciate not having me recline for the entire flight.
If I’m flying economy class I prefer airlines with pre-reclined seats. The comfort is about the same as those with self-reclining seats and the recline rage factor is eliminated.
If it reclines I’m reclining. I’m not a sardine and the airlines are just greedy for the money they know you’ll pay, so I no longer fly . If people would pick a day to spend the extra money and refuse economy, what would that do to them? The airplane needs proper weight throughout the plane. Maybe they’ll get the hint. Let’s have a movement revolt.!!
Sorry but I find folks that recline to be selfish. We’re already in tight quarters but you want to lean back into my lap? I’m a tall guy and it often hits my knees on some planes, on others it has spilled my drink. Now I’m breathing on your forehead and can’t use my tray.
I don’t recline in economy, I think it’s rude.