American Airlines passenger shares photos of man ‘in my lap’ in reclining seat complaint

Most airplane seats have the ability to recline for a relaxing flight experience, but one man has shared how another passenger’s seat may have gone too far.

In a recent post on X/Twitter, the man under the username @av_cova posted a photo of the seat in front of him reclined so far back that his knees were touching the top of the seat. He revealed in the post that he was sitting in first class on an American Airlines flight.

“‘First class,’” his post began. “Dude is in my lap. You continue to be awful, @AmericanAir.”

In the thread, the man explained that he had limited access to move in the cabin. He suggested that the seat was able to move so far back because it was broken.

“I can’t use my tray table and no chance of getting up. I’m in 3C, so 2C is clearly broken. AA1851. Get it fixed before someone else wastes a fortune on first class and gets f***ed @AmericanAir,” the post read.

In an interview with Fox News, the X user mentioned that he did alert a flight attendant of the seat problem, but allegedly nothing was done to fix it.

“He shrugged it off – basically saying, ‘It’s an old airplane; some of these seats are worn out,’” he told the outlet. “No matter how I positioned myself, the seat was still against my knees. The gentleman in the seat in front of me was very sympathetic, but he was unable to get the seat to lock forward, as it was inoperable.”

American Airlines later responded to the passenger’s complaint, as they commented underneath his post apologizing for the uncomfortable experience.

“Keeping our planes in top-notch shape is always the goal,” they wrote. “We’re sorry for this inconvenience and appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We’ll get this right over to the Maintenance folks for review. Our apologies again.”

However, he still wasn’t satisfied with the apology, as the man replied: “Maintenance isn’t gonna review the money I wasted…”

Speaking with Fox, the social media user explained that he had spent an extra $500 on a first-class seat specifically for extra leg room, which wasn’t possible with the seat malfunction.

This isn’t the first time a person has complained about a seat on a flight. Back in September, Erin Rempel turned to TikTok to share a video of her experience in the middle seat of an airplane.

The clip showed her sitting in the middle seat with two men on either side of her, who had stretched their legs far enough that she appeared squished into her seat. The text across the screen of her video simply read: “Female rage.”

“Why would anyone EVER need that much room??? I tried to get him to move but he wouldn’t,” she wrote in the caption of her video.

Her TikTok went on to receive more than 20 million views, with many people taking to the comments to express how they were equally as mad as Rempel. Some people even called out the display of “manspreading” – when a man spreads out his legs in a public seating area, typically taking up an extra seat in the process or invading others’ space.

“Girl you need to say something. They do not need to be over that much, if you’re nervous, call a flight attendant,” one commenter pointed out at the time.