A FEMALE passenger’s experience of “manspreading” on a four-hour flight has gone viral – but the picture of the “rude” man has divided opinion.
Emily Kauai vented online about her nightmare journey with Southwest Airlines on Reddit – and the post sparked a debate about acceptable behaviour in public.
She shared a picture showing her legs and those of the man sitting next to her on the social media platform’s “Wellthatsucks” subreddit.
The photo shows her knees squished together in the aisle seat while the man on her right has his legs pushed apart as far as possible.
Her fellow passenger has his phone between his legs and appears to be watching a film on the tiny screen.
“This was how my entire 4 hour flight went today,” Emily wrote. “I am a 5’8” female.”
When asked by a fellow Redditor if she had said anything to the passenger, Emily replied: “A couple of times I mentioned it, and he would move over, but his legs would casually return to where they rested during his movie.”
The post has racked up more than 1,000 comments since it was first shared, with many people agreeing with Emily that the man was in the wrong.
“This photo makes me angry on OPs [original poster’s] behalf,” one wrote. “People should have some basic self-awareness and courtesy.”
Others branded his actions “inconsiderate” and “rude”.
However, others sympathised with the male passenger and blamed the airline for squishing people in together.
Another user wrote: “I’m 6’4”, I have to sit in the aisle seat, handicap seats, or emergency row only. There simply isn’t room for people with longer legs unless we do the splits like this and that’s generally just rude to encroach on people.”
But a second Redditor pointed out that the man seemed to be sitting fully forward in his seat, meaning height wasn’t a factor.
“That guy is fully scooted forward,” they wrote. “He’s not tall. Look where his groin area is compared to hers. He’s just inconsiderate.”
A third said: “Sadly you have to be aggressive about claiming your personal space on a flight.”
One user added that the blame lies with the airlines themselves squeezing in as many passengers as possible.
“It’s the airline industry reducing seat size and space to maximise profit,” they said.
“This is why we need government regulations,” another added. “If we had a regulation stating ‘aircraft seats must have X inches of leg room’, we would not have to be packed like sardines in a can.”
Agreeing, one user wrote: “It’s horrible what the airlines have done to the seats. No room, no recline, and no comfort.
Rows can often break out on planes over personal space.
This week, a passenger with the “most reclined seat in history” divided opinions after he left the traveller behind him with almost no space.
TikTokers The Pointer Brothers shared a clip of a passenger silently raging after being left near to no legroom on his five-hour flight.
The ticket holder lifted a red card in protest in a hilarious tongue-in-cheek move caught on camera.
Brothers Henry and Mike captioned the video the “easiest red card of all time”.
They wrote: “Five-hour flight time… Is this the most reclined seat in the history of aviation?”
Plane seats have shrunk from an average of 18 inches in width to 16 inches since the 1990s.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the US received more than 26,000 comments after recently asking for feedback from passengers about aircraft seat sizes.
