From kids on flights to reclining seats: the most contentious travel topics of 2022

Should you swap places so a family can sit together on a flight? Push your seat back when travelling? Bring a toddler into business class? Helen Coffey looks back at the issues that sparked the hottest debates this year

Younger passengers often spark debate online (Getty)

Travel is frequently a subject that brings people together. After all, everyone likes travel, right? Along with puppies, ice cream and rainbows, it’s one of the least contentious concepts out there. We may favour different destinations and plump for different kinds of trips, but whether a fly-and-flop fan or an off-the-beaten-track adventurer, most of us can agree that getting away is a very enjoyable pastime indeed.

But beyond our collective passion for exploring, there are certain hot-button issues that spark a 0-60 debate whenever they crop up, as stories throughout 2022 could attest. Because, when it comes to travel etiquette, tensions run high – and opinions go deep.

Case in point: children. Specifically, children on flights. You might assume this wouldn’t be a controversial issue, but it doesn’t take long for the wheels to come off when travellers of all ages are stuck together in a cramped plane cabin at 30,000ft. The most recent headline concerned toddlers and first class, and whether the twain should meet. In December, a mother shared her experience of paying to travel in style with her husband and young child – only for another passenger to accuse them of being in the “wrong seats”.

“My toddler has always been a good flyer and has flown a lot throughout her short life,” the woman wrote in a Reddit post, adding that her daughter stayed in her seat and played quietly during the flight. But once the family had boarded and taken their seats, they noticed a fellow passenger was “glaring” at them. She said that, once her husband was asleep, the male traveller approached her: “It was the guy that glared at us as he boarded and before I could even get a word out he told me that children weren’t allowed in first class and that we needed to move to our ‘real’ seats.”

It doesn’t take long for the wheels to come off in the powder-keg atmosphere of a cramped plane cabin at 30,000ft

After a flight attendant told the man the family were in their correct seats and to not bother them again, he allegedly called the mother a “fat c***”, and said that “he pays too much money for first class to be surrounded by children”. Ouch. You might think this is a straightforward case of an entitled man being abominably rude – but even though many comments on social media were supportive of the woman, some said they thought her cabinmate had a point. “I personally would hateeee if I paid first class to have a disruptive kid there,” wrote one Reddit user.

Almost as controversial was the issue of seat swapping (or refusing to do so) on flights, which sparked fiery debate numerous times this year. One US-based woman defended herself for refusing to switch plane seats so that a family could sit together; “No you can’t have my seat!” wrote US-based Maresa Friedman, posting a video of herself to TikTok looking annoyed on a flight. “I am not a villain for [refusing to] move from the seat in first class I paid full fare for.”

In a series of videos, Ms Friedman explained that a family had asked her to move from her seat so that they could sit together. She insisted that being a parent did not give people the right to order other passengers to move around the plane. “I’m also a mom, so it’s called PLANNING AHEAD,” fumed Ms Friedman in her captions.

In a similar account, a Reddit user shared a story on the forum, asking: “AITA (Am I the a**hole) for not giving up my plane seat so a family could be all together?” In the post, which received more than 9,500 upvotes and thousands of comments, the passenger explained that they had taken a flight back from Greece, which they called “extremely hectic”.

“I booked my ticket specifically to be closer to the front of the plane so I can be closer to the gate when it’s time to get out,” they said. “I personally hate travelling so I spent a bit more money to be closer.” However, when they boarded the plane, a family of four approached them to ask if they could swap seats. “Normally I’d be OK with that but switching spots would mean moving back 20 rows down, which leaves me at an inconvenience and I would not get my money’s worth. I rejected and said that I would like to keep my seat,” they went on, with commenters divided on the issue.

Then there was the man who refused to swap seats to sit beside his girlfriend on a flight after “she kept complaining” on holiday; the man who found himself stuck between a couple with a baby on a plane because the father refused to swap seats to be next to his partner and child; and a couple who divided the internet by revealing that they wouldn’t trade plane seats with a child who was “scared” of flying and sitting in a different row from her mother.

And of course, the OG, the story that first reignited the divisive topic for a 2022 audience: media personality Vogue Williams branding a fellow passenger a “piece of s***” for refusing to swap seats on a flight so she and her family could all sit together. Speaking on the couple’s podcast, Spencer and Vogue, this summer, Ms Williams said: “I was sitting in an aisle of three [seats] and I had booked the wrong seat in the other aisle and that was my mistake.

“Spenny was like, ‘Would you mind doing window instead of aisle so we can be together?’ And he was like, ‘Yes, Spencer, I would mind’.”

He told me that children weren’t allowed in first class and that we needed to move to our ‘real’ seats

Vogue went on: “We were just like, ‘Oh, OK dude, that’s OK’, and so anyway when he realised he was being an absolute t***, he looked at me with a newborn baby and the two kids beside me, he was like, ‘OK, fine, fine I’ll do it’. Then literally the air hostess came down and I asked her, ‘Would you have another aisle seat for this f***** particular piece of s*** over here?’”

The anecdote got many travellers’ backs up, including The Independent’s deputy travel editor, Lucy Thackray. She wrote at the time: “The issue here is not if it is best and right for young families to sit together on flights, I think we can all give that a resounding ‘Yes’. It’s the entitlement. It’s the stropping around, summoning flight attendants and public shaming following a mistake that was, as she herself admitted, Williams’s own. The fact that she went on to reference an ‘angel sent from God’ on another flight, who saw she was in a middle seat and offered her their aisle seat, shows that she believes families on planes are VIPs, and others are just pawns to be rearranged around them.”

The topic of personal space on planes similarly provoked strong opinions. One woman who accused her neighbour of “manspreading” on a flight, sharing a picture in which his legs are wide apart and encroaching on her legroom, divided the travel jury. While numerous social media users thought the male passenger was in the wrong, branding him “rude” and “inconsiderate”, others sympathised with him. One commented: “I’m 6ft 5in and, especially on flights that start and end outside of the US, I feel terrible because I have to either spread like that guy does, jab my knees into the seat in front of me, or pay for a bigger seat.”

But an even more contentious issue turned out to be reclining your plane seat – and whether it’s a perfectly normal thing to do or marks you out as a sociopath (even The Independent’s travel desk couldn’t agree on this one). A TikTok video in which a passenger’s seat was shown as tipping backwards and carrying the captions, “Five hour flight home. Is this the most reclined seat in the history of aviation?” soon garnered more than 1,000 comments. There was little in the way of consensus. “Out of respect for the person behind me, I never recline,” said one viewer; another said, “I recline my seat every single time and never once have I been upset with the person in front of me for reclining their seat...”

In the court of public opinion, it seems the only thing we can agree on is that no one can agree on anything. I like to think that views are so strident only because they reflect how passionate we all are about travel. At the end of the day, most of these issues should be filed under “don’t sweat the small stuff” while we focus on enjoying the fact that, after years of Covid-related restrictions, we can finally see the world freely again. And having the seatback in front teetering a little too close, being forced to negotiate positions with a harassed family, or even being called a “piece of s***” by a reality star is a small price to pay.