WestJet has announced they’re going to start charging passengers for the ability to recline their seats. That’s right, the next time you want to jam your seatback into my knees like the airplane is your living room and that seat is your La-Z-boy, it’s gonna cost you.
At the moment, the seats on WestJet’s 737-8 MAX and 737-800 aircraft are economy fare and will recline. With the updated design plans, the planes will include a new premium section up front with a dozen seats with, “ergonomically contoured seat cushions, reclining seat backs and a large headrest with four-way adjustment capability.” Behind that will be another section with 36 seats that recline and also have more legroom. And behind that, economy, with a divider to keep the fancy people in their fancy seats away from the rest of us cattle and our poor life choices and economy-class smells. Economy will have no additional legroom and no reclining seats.
News outlets are asking regular folks, “Do you think this is a cash grab?”
Dumb question. Of course, it’s a bloody cash grab. Or as the airline would probably call it, “a comfort enhancing innovation.” The only thing they’re giving away for free now is stress.
Normally, I’d be the first to rage against the machine that is airline overreach and greed. I’ve long maintained that a good generic Canadian airline slogan would be: We’re not happy until you’re not happy.
But, brace yourself for my shocking admission: cash grab notwithstanding, I’m actually on WestJet’s side here.
I know this is a divisive topic. Bring it up at a dinner party, and you’ll see how quickly opinions start flying out with no air traffic control. But this whole moral conundrum is not complicated. It’s not even a conundrum. It’s black and white. The only grey area already has your feet and backpack jammed into it.
Yeah, it’s nice to recline your seat. But let’s be honest: if you back your seat into another person’s already tiny airspace, you’re a serious, card-carrying arsehole.
Maybe not quite up there with full-blown war criminal, but like, Nuremberg side-eye close. Airplane space is already a zero-sum game. I’m a short guy and even I feel claustrophobic. I have friends that are 6’4 and I don’t know how do it, their femurs jammed into the seatback like human meat sack origami.
Some of the offending a-holes are all, “it’s my right!” They’re so focused on their own narcissistic comfort and ‘all the good things they have coming to them’ attitude, that they’ve declared bankruptcy on their own humanity. They’ve decided that they are more important than society and empathy for others is for chumps.
They often mount counter-arguments like:
“When I put my seat back, they can just put their seat back!”
Oh sure, let’s start a chain reaction of stupidity all the way to the back of the plane, where the final person against the back wall can’t recline and gets crushed by the butterfly effect of selfishness.
“You’re supposed to! Why make it recline if it’s not meant to be used?”
They also make machine guns for the purpose of killing people. That doesn’t mean we have the automatic right to mow people down. (Maybe seat back-related incidents are why they don’t allow guns on airplanes?).
Now, there is also the rare breed who says, “Yeah, I know it’s awful and I don’t care. I’m a total dickhead and I’m good with that.” I can almost respect that. Self-awareness is sexy.
Let me tell you a story from a nine-hour flight to Italy I took. I had already been travelling about 15 hours on very little sleep. I was wedged in next to a portly gentleman (which wasn’t his fault), so my spine was shaped like a question mark for the better part of a day.
This was the scene when a woman several rows up moved to an empty seat to sit near her father, who was in front of me. Not a big deal, except she brought her screaming baby with her. Of course, this wasn’t the baby’s fault. I mean, it’s a baby. It wouldn’t even be the mother’s fault, except for the fact that she didn’t soothe the baby, nor even feed it, the entire flight. She mostly slept with it in her lap while it hollered and cried and kept the rest of us awake.
You’d think that Grandpa would offer to hold the baby, maybe sooth it a little. Nope. He was too focused on his own comfort. And that’s where he decided to be the seat-reclining champion of Europe. He kept slamming that thing back like he was trying to launch it into orbit.
Finally, from my 30 cm by 30 cm space, with my twisted spine, I snapped. I grabbed the back of his seat and shook it like a maraca. Father and daughter (who was awake at that point) looked at each other like I was nuts. But he put his seat back up for the rest of the flight.
Okay, not my finest moment. Perhaps I ‘out-assholed’ him somewhat and I have no good excuse for my own behaviour, but like Howard Beale in Network, I was mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. At least I feel guilty about it. The seat-tippers don’t feel bad that they are encroaching on your precious space.
Clearly, there has to be a better way. Has Westjet found it? Have they also accidentally found a way to monetize decency?
I support Westjet making seat-tipping a luxury you have to pay for, in a section designed so that it won’t affect the person behind you. And let me tell you, the idea of supporting an airline feels dirty. Like, I want to dash to the nearest shower and scrub myself clean while I vomit and cry. So I don’t take this lightly.
But let it be said: you want to be the asshole? Fine. Pay the asshole tax. Actually, with the new aircraft design, once you pay that tax, you’re not an asshole anymore. Your seat hijinks are legit and you’re cleared for takeoff. No longer a burden to society.
Of course, the real question is, how many of the selfish dorks who squawked about their ‘right to recline’ will actually pony up the cash for their precious leaning thrones section?
Not many, I bet.
Hey, if you like stuff like this (essays that I think are funny but only other weirdos agree with me), you should pick up my book, Bunnyhug Cynic.
A bunch of Gen X-style essays about Saskatchewan, pop culture, and the absurdity of the universe. The feature piece is a about my time working at Bonanza Steakhouse as a teenager in the 90s.
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