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Travel

15th Feb 2020

CEO of biggest airline in the world weighs in on the reclining-your-seat debate

Rory Cashin

Tell us your on-board-reclining etiquette.

To recline or not to recline? That is the question of our generation.

If someone reclines back into you, suddenly jamming your tray-table into your tummy without warning, then that is the dictionary definition of being “triggered”.

But if you’re particularly uncomfortable in your chair, or it has already been a long flight, or you’re just taller than the average passenger, and you’re weighed down with something akin to good manners, what do you do then? Do you just grin and put up with it? Or do you throw caution to the wind and get those few extra degrees towards a horizontal lifestyle?

The etiquette for these things have always been a little blurry, but if you’re going to ask anyone, then the person to ask would be Ed Bastian, the CEO of Delta Airways.

As of January 2020, Delta are the biggest biggest public airline company in the world (according to Forbes), having made just shy of $45 billion in revenue, and carried the second most passengers in 2019, with 204 million folk brought around the world.

So during an interview with CNBC, Bastian was asked on his profession opinion on the recline etiquette, and this was his taken on it:

“The proper thing to do is, if you’re going to recline into somebody, you ask if it’s OK first. I never recline, because I don’t think it’s something as CEO I should be doing, and I never say anything if someone reclines into me.”

There you have it. The guy in charge of the biggest airline in the world says it is okay to recline… as long as you ask first.

However, we don’t need his input on the Taking-Your-Shoes-And-Socks-Off-On-A-Flight debate. Because there is no debate there. Because that is not right and those people need to be studied.