
The Showdown at the Window Seat - prostoalex
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-showdown-at-the-window-seat-11568799003
======
krono
Contender for the biggest non-issue of the year award.

You have a problem with the window screen position and aren't under specific
instructions from the flight crew to keep it in its current state? Speak up to
your fellow-passengers and find a solution together. It's really not that
difficult.

~~~
wyclif
I agree with all you say, but it's a reflection of a new generation of
travellers who don't want to interact with other passengers. I've seen the
effect over and over again when flying. More and more of the effort of flight
attendants is being shifted from serving travellers to acting as a buffer and
mediating disputes between passengers.

There's another story on HN now about Amtrak shutting down their dining cars.
I read the story, and one of the reasons they are ending dining car service is
because when they got focus group feedback from millennials they found that
most of them didn't want to sit next to a stranger while dining.

I find the fact that we are more digitally connected than ever before but
correspondingly more socially isolated quite troubling.

~~~
brownbat
One of the results from happiness research is that people rate their expected
enjoyment from an interaction with a stranger as very low, but if you ask them
after such an interaction, they usually rate it very highly.

Maybe we're risk averse because most interactions are mildly positive, but a
tiny number are exceptionally bad, triggering the availability hueristic. Not
sure.

Either way, we're probably more avoidant than we should be.

~~~
meddlepal
Interesting point and I agree as I was about to post something similar. The
vast majority of interactions I've had with strangers has been mostly
forgettable, but there's a few great outliers in the negative direction that
really makes me try and avoid these interactions unless I really need
something.

~~~
sandworm101
Yes. Maybe 75% of the time i discover that the random stranger is a total
lunatic. If they arent a flat-earther or trying to convert me to thier cult,
they want to complain about how nobody wants to listen to them anymore.

~~~
KC8ZKF
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you
run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.”

Raylan Givens

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chooseaname
> Mr. Hayes thinks it’s a matter of airplane etiquette: Passengers should go
> with the collective good. “If everyone else has it closed, why do you have
> to be the one person?” he says. “I personally think it’s a bit selfish.”

I think some people are just wired like this. I think that everyone else
having it closed gives them _more_ reason to leave theirs open.

Personally, I love looking out the windows the whole flight. I get to turn my
brain off and just look at clouds. That being said, I was raised to be aware
of others' needs and if I sense it bothers someone I draw the shade down.

~~~
isostatic
If there's glare on someone's screen or in their face then sure, I'll lower
the blind.

Otherwise no. If you care so much, book the window seat yourself. If you want
a dark cabin, book a plane where you control the cabin.

------
mikeholler
When I read any article like this I always go back to Louis CK's "Everything's
Amazing and Nobody's Happy" bit. Like, c'mon people, can't you just let
someone happily experience the miracle of flight while you watch your
downloaded Netflix shows? Is that so hard?

If you're trying to sleep and the light bothers you, bring something to cover
your eyes with. If you can't sleep with something on your face, maybe practice
a bit before you fly.

I personally have a _very_ hard time sleeping on moving objects of any kind. I
have to be at my wits' end of sleep deprivation to be able to do this. I would
not think of suggesting a bus driver stop so I can get my winks -- it's _my_
problem, and I'll deal with it as such.

The sense of entitlement in this article is huge, and this is also one of the
most first-world problems ever.

Almost every airline except the budget airlines (Frontier, Spirit, Southwest)
make it possible to book a window seat at no extra cost. If it's this much of
a problem to you, you should get a window seat yourself to grant yourself that
control.

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pintxo
> The FAA has no regulations on shades up or down, though many countries
> require windows in exit rows to be clear for takeoff and landing, when an
> accident could jam a closed shade and prevent passengers from seeing if they
> were opening an emergency door into fire.

Is this for real? I was under the impression that SOP is, all shades up during
takeoff and landing, for safety reasons. I this mandated in Europe, or do I
use a skewed selection of airlines as this has been enforced on every flights
in the last years?

~~~
kingbirdy
I've been told to raise the shades in Mexico & Peru as well, but for the US
they don't care.

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tyingq
The bigger problem is the middle seats on aircraft with 3+ adjoining seats.
Your seat mates almost always commandeer the armrests, and if you're seated
with large people, it's miserable.

I've seen a few different seat configurations that fix this, but there isn't
really much incentive for the airlines to adopt them.

~~~
ericmay
My rule here is that the middle seat always gets the arm rests because they
don’t have the window to lean on or the outside isle for space.

~~~
tyingq
That's a great rule, but often an awkward conversation that can end in an even
more miserable flight.

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helloindia
Reminded me of this video of two bus passengers having a silent dispute over
window.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqeTEYBFfM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQqeTEYBFfM)

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Jaruzel
From the Article:

 _Mr. Hyman thinks the power breakdown for airplane seating goes like this:

\- The window seat passenger gets to control the window shade.

\- The middle-seat passenger gets the armrests.

\- The aisle-seat flier gets the most freedom of movement._

Basically it's this: If you want to control the shade, book the Window seat.
Simple.

~~~
jen20
The most annoying outcome there is when you book a window seat, only to find
no window thanks to a plane switch - at which point it becomes worse than a
middle.

~~~
meddlepal
Advantage of a windowless window seat is still ability to rest head at an
angle against the wall. I can't sleep when I'm forced to sit straight up, I
tend to fall-forward and then snap awake and catch myself.

Being able to put my head against something is the difference between sleeping
like a baby on the flight and being awake from coast to coast.

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chrisseaton
Wow people are petty. I think you’re never going to have a good experience in
economy - might as well just go to sleep for the duration and not worry about
what anyone else decides to do.

I don’t know why people choose to struggle to eat, read, or watch videos.

~~~
grecy
That is a problem for a few reasons:

1\. It's hard to sleep for all of a 13+ hour flight (North
America->Australia).

2\. I'm 6 foot 2, and my head doesn't touch the head rest on most planes (even
when it's possible to lift up the thing with head flaps on it). It's hard to
sleep when your head is not supported.

~~~
chrisseaton
I probably don't literally sleep the whole time either, but I do still just
put on an eye mask, headphones and sit there and zone out, and don't really
expect reasonably to be able to achieve anything more than that.

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sandworm101
Dont worry, windows on planes will go away soon enough. They make planes
heavier and are going to be phased out. The replacements, screens, will be a
great medium to further monitize the cattle.

[https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/emirates-windowless-
plane...](https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/emirates-windowless-
planes/index.html)

[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/passenger-planes-
wi...](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/passenger-planes-without-
windows-could-4512820)

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archeantus
My wife and I were on a 10 hour flight to Tokyo earlier this year and we
happened to sit next to a lady with unbelievable resolve to keep the window
open.

It was a very big plane and in our portion of the plane, _every_ other window
was closed (several dozen). We debated asking her to shut it, but decided she
must have her reasons.

For a flight that was supposed to have a sleep segment, we were quite grumpy
to realize this wasn’t going to be possible.

~~~
r00fus
Why didn't you just ask her? It's not "resolve" if she doesn't know it bothers
you.

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rr-geil-j
Probably another US-specific issue... I am not really a frequent traveler but
I've accumulated around 10 legs of flights from Asia to Europe and within each
continent. I do not remember encountering anything similar.

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amos19870630
I've been flying for many years and I always choose the window seat for the
view, and for the best reading light. There is nothing like natural light on a
printed page, punctuated by the visual glory of the earth and sky sliding by.

