Flight etiquette: How to avoid a row over reclining plane seats

Many of us will be familiar with the dilemma of being in a window seat and needing to go to the toilet, but the person next to you has fallen asleep.

Do you nudge them to wake them up, or climb over them?

More than half of Americans responding to the YouGov survey said having to climb over someone in the seat next to them to go to the toilet was unacceptable.

Mr Hanson says he normally has an aisle seat, and before going to sleep he tells the passenger next to him it’s fine to wake him up or hop over if they need to.

If sat in the middle or window seat, you should just gently let the passenger in the aisle seat know you need to get past them – but be aware you might not speak the same language, he advises.

If a passenger has been drinking alcohol, it can make them need to go to the toilet more often too.

Zoe, a former flight attendant with Virgin Atlantic, was on a flight to Ibiza on a different carrier where many of the passengers had been drinking in the airport bar beforehand, she says.

As soon as the flight took off and the seatbelt light went off, “everybody stood up” and started queuing for the toilet. Some got “quite aggressive”, she says, leading to the cabin crew turning the seatbelt signs back on, forcing everybody to sit down.

Unfortunately, one passenger really couldn’t wait so had to “have a wee in a carrier bag”.

“He put some swimming shorts in there first to soak it up,” says Zoe.