Airline lounging is becoming a plane pain

With airlines squeezing more seats onto planes and flights more crowded than ever, some nasty battles are brewing, pitting passengers who recline their seats against the squished travelers sitting behind them.

Most U.S. airlines still allow seats to tip as far back as four or five inches, even though they have shrunk the space between rows. But now Southwest Airlines is doing something to reduce the threat of bruised knees and spilled drinks. The carrier is reducing the maximum recline in many of its seats so that customers can use laptop computers, for example, when the person in front of them wants to lean back.

Southwest found that its seats had varying degrees of maximum recline, from two inches of movement at the top of the seat to 4.5 inches. The airline decided to standardize recline at three inches, adjusting seats as planes go in for major maintenance work. “It was impossible for a customer to use a laptop behind someone who had reclined fully in a seat that allowed four or 4.5 inches of recline,” said Linda Rutherford, a Southwest spokeswoman.

While Southwest offers 32 inches of space for each seat row on its Boeing 737s, many competitors have seats with less room — 31-inch rows for the most part, with some as tight as 30 inches. Yet most other airlines also allow at least four inches of recline in seats. Continental Airlines reports the steepest coach recline among major airlines — a spokesman says most of Continental’s coach seats have five to six inches of recline. But Continental is less kind to the knees of the passengers behind — most seats on its 737s have 31 inches of space for each row. UAL Corp.’s United Airlines has a similar squeeze in its main coach cabin: Five inches of recline with seats in 31-inch rows. AMR Corp.’s American Airlines and Delta Air Lines say all their coach seats are set to recline four inches.

“I’ve seen laptops break when seats come back fast,” says Gary Taggart, a frequent flier from the San Francisco area.

Like window-seat lovers and aisle-seat devotees, travelers are split into two philosophical seat-recline camps — recliners who believe they are entitled to a little more comfort (and perhaps sleep) versus upright travelers who prefer to use their tray tables for reading or working.

Battles over cabin space can get nasty, from annoying kicking of the reclined seat to heated arguments. Many tall travelers admit to trying to send a message through a seatback by repeatedly bumping and kneeing the reclining passenger in front, or holding a newspaper so it brushes the head of the recliner.

Gene Wojcieszak, a technology consultant, says he’s more of an upright flier because of the lack of leg room in planes, and he’s not afraid to push seats back up. “I usually just say, ‘Hey, Dude, there’s no space here,”’ he said. Business travelers usually respond well; infrequent fliers sometimes are miffed, he says.

But Scott Lamb, a recycling company executive, is a devout recliner — he says he needs the extra space to get his work done. “Usually the person in front of me reclines, I recline and then the person behind me reclines and it works out for everyone except for the guy in the last row who can’t recline,” he said.