I wonder what the pre-reclined seats feel like... I don't know that I'd want to be half-reclined all the time...

I have only flown economy plus, or premium depending on the carrier, a few times and it was definitely more comfortable. On the international flight, the premium seats had a reclining mechanism where you recline within the seat casing (don't know how to describe it otherwise) but the actual seat does not move, so whether you're reclined or not makes no difference for the person behind you.

But yeah, in the rest of the cattle car, the situation is not so kind.

I don't understand the fuss about people "reclining into your space". It isn't your space, it is their space. Just like the space behind you is yours if you recline your seat. It has never bothered me when the person in front of me reclines their seat. Of course, I am not 6'8". Such people need to buy roomier seats or sit in the bulkhead.

I don’t like it when the seat in front of me reclines. It can threaten to spill my drink and makes it very hard to get out. I normally can get up from my seat without touching the seat in front of me, but if it is reclined, I will grab on and it will become a catapult.

Reclining is fine on long haul and red eye.

Reclining or not, air travel is just misery.

I don't usually watch a lot of videos online, but this one came up today and caught my attention. Kind of interesting and seems like a natural follow-on to the original topic.

I never traveled on planes during the golden age of air travel. I had no idea there were ever these kinds of lounges available on airplanes. Piano bar in coach, anyone?





https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWG08YvroaE

Really good comfortable airline seats are still available, you just have to be on a big plane (like a 737 or bigger) on a long route (like trans-continental or inter-continental) in first or business class. It will cost a lot more than coach/economy, but you will get a larger, more comfortable seat.

My experience has been that short regional routes are usually flown with smaller aircrafts, and the "first class" seats for such routes, while maybe slightly bigger and recline just a tiny bit more, are not significantly bigger than couch/economy seats and they won't cost all that much more.

Side-to-side, it's obvious that airline seat widths are not keeping up with Americans' girths. Heck, they are going in opposite directions.