One of YouTube’s most recognised travel personalities has shared a useful tip that can help tourists avoid annoying other passengers during a flight.
Megan runs the Portable Professional YouTube channel and regularly creates videos in which she offers tips to viewers on how to stay comfortable and avoid scams when at the airport or in the air.
In one of her latest videos, Megan suggested that there are four specific times during a flight where passengers should never recline their seats.
She advised: “The first thing that you should absolutely never do on a plane would be to recline during one of these four key phases of the flight: boarding, takeoff, meal service and landing.
“You shouldn’t recline during boarding because it can make it difficult for other passengers to get to their seats and store their carry-on luggage correctly. Seats must also be upright for takeoff and landing for safety reasons.”
According to Megan, passengers are unable to recline their seats during takeoff and landing since it limits other people’s access to the aisles, making it much more difficult to evacuate the plane in the event of an emergency.
Ahead of the takeoff and landing stages, members of staff will ask all passengers to recline their seat, meaning those who ignore the initial request could also slow down the journey.
In addition, when they are up in the air, passengers should avoid reclining when meals are being served or the passenger behind is using a laptop or tablet, since this makes using the tray tables harder.
Later in the video, Megan also recommended that tourists avoid reclining without asking the passenger behind first, stating that she once caused an unfortunate incident by suddenly moving her seat.
She added: “Even during the times of flight where it is acceptable reclining this is a hotly debated topic and many airlines are phasing it [reclining seats] out of economy class altogether.
“On a recent flight, I didn’t realise that the woman behind me had a hot coffee on the back of my seat. When I reclined, it spilled all over her. I felt terrible, and I don’t know exactly how she felt as she was yelling at me in Spanish but it wasn’t good.”
Finally, Megan suggested that, whilst passengers should ask for permission first, raising the armrest is a useful way to gain extra space.
She explained: “Passengers should also refrain from lifting up the armrests if you do happen to be seated beside a stranger. There’s a button on most plain armrests that lets you lift them up for extra space.
“This is great if you’re seated with a partner or if you have an empty seat beside you. If you’re seated in the aisle, a little-known hack is that you can usually find a secret button underneath the aisle armrest to lift it out of the way as well.”