After couple banned from airline Cathay Pacific after seat reclining debate, we take a look at the legal issues

Airlines have to balance comfort with the economic pressures to squeeze in more seats.

By RNZ

• The debate over reclining seats on planes intensified after a Hong Kong couple was banned from Cathay Pacific.
• Auckland lawyer Colin Hunter explained the legal implications, noting different laws for international and domestic flights.
• Hunter said international passengers have limited recourse under the Montreal Convention, while domestic travellers are protected by the Consumer Guarantees Act.

The thorny issue of reclining seats on planes has been debated for years and recently the BBC reported that a Hong Kong couple found themselves banned from Cathay Pacific after a woman claimed she was harassed for reclining in her seat.

Colin Hunter, a senior associate in the disputes team at Auckland law firm Hesketh Henry, talked with Sunday Morning about the problem and where the law stands on the issue.

“Those of us who have been on planes enough have all experienced the issue of having someone recline,” Hunter said, “... and navigating that can certainly be frustrating on a long international trip in particular”.

“I’ve been there – and usually the steward or stewardess on the flight will usually ask the person hopefully to lift their seat up – at least during meals. But I get it, you can see why people can get angry in various situations – we’re emotional creatures!”

Hunter said while he does not recline his own seat, if someone in front of him does: “I’ll live with that”.

And he warned that passengers who don’t follow the instructions of crew (including instructions given during their briefings) could face arrest, serious fines or bans.

But does an airline have an obligation to provide a certain degree of comfort and convenience to passengers, and if another passenger is impinging on that, does the airline have an obligation to intervene?

“Like all lawyers, I will say it depends,” Hunter said. Different laws apply to international or domestic travel.

International flights

“On an international flight your ticket is regulated by the Montreal Convention, you don’t have a remedy against the airline for discomfort.

“Unless the ticket itself provides that they have to provide X amount of room, or maybe it rose to the level of a health and safety issue or something like that – there’s no real obligation on an international airline to do much about it, unfortunately.”

Each airline makes its own commercial calculation balancing how many people they can fit on a plane and how much comfort they can provide, balancing profit and reputation.

But if an international traveller experiences a loss that can be proved, that could be a different matter, Hunter said.

The Montreal Convention is a treaty signed by various countries including New Zealand, that sets out the legal liability of airlines.

“If you have an actual loss – so for example if you suffered an injury because of it, something was damaged of yours – something like that, you might well have a kind of legal claim against an airline on an international flight,” Hunter said.

“And it’s possible you could have a minor injury just because of being cramped up or something like that ... but unlike virtually anything else you’re actually allowed to bring suit under the Montreal Convention, even if you already have ACC coverage.”

“The thing you can’t really remedy are what lawyers might call general damages or discomfort or inconvenience.”

Domestic flights

“All of this is a little bit different in domestic travel, because in domestic travel the Consumer Guarantees Act applies,” Hunter said.

“There are minimum standards of service that are required, and then the airline might well be in breach, for example by failing to provide you with a reasonable seat that’s of reasonable quality – and that might involve the person next to you. Or the fact people are reclining their very narrow seats and very close to each other.

“Consumers have more ability in domestic travel than in international travel when it comes to these sorts of things, even though the position for personal injury is much better on international travel.”

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