In the woman's defence, anyone who has long hair knows how pleasant it is to free the back of your neck. So we can see how that move might be tempting.
But even so, there is a line, and she massively crossed it. So we'd forgive Ramos and his partner Ryan for dreaming they were equipped with hair-scissors or chewing gum, as commenters suggested.
Another brought Prime Minister John Key into the fray.
Or maybe caressing the ponytail would freak her out enough.
Yeah, nah.
Ramos, who was flying from Houston to Boston, told metro.co.uk he was initially confused by what was happening.
"Up to that point, the person in 22B hadn't attracted my attention at all," he said.
"At first I thought, "What is that?" It took us a few moments to figure out that it was another passenger's hair.
"For another few moments, we marvelled at the ridiculousness of it."
Ramos said the woman, who was playing a game on her phone at the time, appeared oblivious to the hairy problem when his partner stood up to intervene.
"Her first language did not appear to be English, and she may have thought he was complaining that she'd reclined her seat," Ramos said.
"Without really looking up from her device, she brought her seat back forward, and the ponytail disappeared."
- news.com.au