Plane passenger sparks etiquette debate after reclining seat for nine hour flight

A plane passenger has opened up a passionate debate after asking if they were 'an a**hole' for reclining their seat for a nine hour international flight after the person behind them objected.

The controversial move took place on a flight from Dallas, Texas to the capital city of France, Paris.

A lengthy journey through the skies, you wouldn't be blamed for wanting to get cosy as you focused on being somewhat well rested by the time you landed in mainland Europe.

But one passenger on the plane was left asking if they had done the wrong thing after reclining their seat despite the person behind them asking them not to.

Reclining seats - yay or nay? (Getty Stock Images)

The reason? Because behind the other passenger was a seat which contained a baby car seat, which took up all the space. This meant they couldn't put their seat back to mimic the person in front.

Raising the issue on the r/AmItheA**hole subreddit on Reddit, the passenger said: "My plan was to sleep as much on the plane as possible, as it was an overnight flight and I was losing seven hours of time. After takeoff, I lean back my seat to begin snoozing.

"Almost immediately, the girl behind me taps on my shoulder and asks me to pull up my seat, which I do, but then asked why.

"She said there was a baby in a car seat right behind her, so she couldn't recline, and if I leaned my seat back, she can't really see the TV screen on the back of my seat."

But the passenger realised their hopes of sleeping sat upright were pretty much non-existent, so they reclined once again and told the person behind them that if it was that much of an issue, to move to one of the various empty seats on the flight.

"She then gets the attention of a flight attendant to tell me to pull up my seat," the passenger revealed.

"I put in my headphones, so the next part is relayed to me by my mum, who was sitting next to me. Apparently the flight attendant told her she couldn't do anything about it -what was she supposed to do, make everyone in front of her not lean their seats back?"

Do you agree with what they did? (Getty Stock Images)

They added: "The girl then got the attention of two more flight attendants, who all said the same thing, and offered the same seat I told her about. Thing is, we were in the window seat, and the girl complained that she picked that seat because it's the window seat so she refused to move. Meanwhile, I pretended to sleep the whole time."

The passenger said she 'felt really bad for her. If it was me and if it was them, she'd be complaining too'. But she added: "I also didn't really care about the window and wouldn't have been bothered at all about moving, so in my mind when I leaned back, I figured she could move if it really bothered her. I bet she really thought I was the a**hole though. It was just a sucky situation."

Responding, Redditors backed the flier saying it's completely acceptable to recline your seat on any plane.

"As long as airline seats continue to cramped, people will need to learn how to deal with these sorts of conflicts in a polite and well mannered way, which I think that you did," another said.

A third wrote: "Airlines and their reduction in passenger space is the real issue."