PLANE DECORUM

Delta CEO’s Bid to Settle Reclining Seats Debate Sparks New Fury

Social media users did not take kindly to his assertion that plane passengers should ask for permission to recline their seats.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian on Friday waded into a debate over airline etiquette that has been raging ever since a Twitter video went viral of two passengers at war over a reclining seat. In an interview on CNBC, Bastian, chief of one of the world’s largest airlines, was asked for his thoughts on the video, which showed a male airline passenger repeatedly punching the seat of the woman directly in front of him after she reclined her seat. “I think customers have the right to recline,” Bastian said, before adding: “I think the proper thing to do is if you’re going to recline into somebody that you ask if it’s okay first and then you do it.” He added, “I never recline, because I don’t think it’s something as CEO I should be doing.” Bastian’s apparent attempt to settle the issue did anything but, instead resulting in a flood of indignant tweets from travelers blasting airlines for cramming in as many passengers as possible and questioning why the seats are equipped to recline if one needs permission to do so.