Is it okay to recline an airline seat?
Recent airline incidents tell us your answer could pit you against your fellow air travelers. In the case of a New Zealand man, it also ended in a date in court and a NZ$600 (US$400) fine for abusive behavior.
Shane Mathew Diedrichs, 38, got upset when the passenger in front of him, a doctor, refused to put his seat back in the upright position on a flight from Wellington to Brisbane on Virgin Australia last November.
Diedrichs, for his part, said that what really made him angry was not the reclining, but the rudeness of the other passenger.
“I did ask nicely and it was the response I got, that’s what fired me up," he said. "I’m not a violent person, I’m not an angry person, it was just bad timing.”
In court in Brisbane, Australia, on Thursday, commonwealth prosecutor Rebecca Blaszczyk said witnesses described Diedrichs as becoming so agitated he began “pushing, kicking and kneeing” the doctor's seat.
The doctor said that he suffered whiplash from the seat assault.
“Being in an aircraft, it’s a confined space, it can get out of control. People’s emotions have to be kept in check," Magistrate Bronwyn Spinger said, according to The Guardian.
Spinger accepted that Diedrichs was remorseful, however, and left his punishment at a NZ$600 fine for offensive and disorderly conduct. He avoided an assault charge.