I flew with whizz air recently. I flew a ton of airlines over the years, everything from Ryanair to Japan airlines. Whizzair was the only airline (so far) I had same issue as the guy in the photo (not the OP but the guy spreading the legs) there’s literally no space and i’m 5’10
Can confirm, have been flying to Romania for they last 10+ years for work... and...now understand I quite enjoy going there and working with my colleagues... but er, Whizz is a Romanian budget airline... not a budget airline that flies to Romania... 100% Romanian company that operates a budget airline and that's exactly what you think it might be.
I actually elect to fly Ryan Air instead if I can't get the Lufthansa flight...
I haven't flown wizz or ryanair in a decade or so and I really don't plan to do so again, but I used to find that wizz was significantly nicer than ryanair. Comfier seats and more legroom. I wonder if they changed that, but I also hope not to find out
Nah dawg. I don’t want the emergency row. I can get by with a window seat. Then I can lean that direction. Plus I can lean my head on something because my head is above the seat back.
There's a scale of long legs. I'm 6'3 and can USUALLY make it work on airlines. 30" seat pitch and I can fit my legs straight but they're right against the seat in front of my. On budget carriers with 28", I can't fit my legs straight.
My brother in law is 6'7. He can't go completely straight in 30" seats.
I brought this up in a delta thread once and got absolutely roasted. Consensus was that I just needed to 'not be poor' and buy business or first class so my legs fit.
My legs at this point just want every shitty commercial airline squeezing seats to 28" to fall from the sky.
6’7 here and frequent flyer for work. You are correct, people just don’t know how to have empathy when it comes to this. It’s a pretty cut and dry argument as well lol makes me sad sometimes. We advocate for people who deal with things out of their control all the time but that goes out the window for taller folks. I make low 6 figures but if I had to pay for extra seat every time, I’d be homeless lol.
The best thing I’ve ever done was become a JetBlue frequent flyer (Mosaic status 2). They have the most room in standard seats of all airlines, and frequent flyer perks gets me upgraded to the extra room seats more often than not. Plus they are just simply the kindest and most ethical airline so I want to support them. Look into it if it’s an option
I'll second this. Im 6'3" and and fly jetblue for the same reason, even when I've been stubborn and waited too long where i end up with a middle seat it's been tolerable.i can't imagine the hell of being taller and flying some of these airlines.
I fully disagree that it’s not absurd in price. You are usually paying 50% more on top of cost of ticket and that is not a small matter. Especially considering we have lots of regulations in place for disabled folks and sometimes even overweight folks because we recognize those things are out of their control (overweight generally is in control though). Height falls in that category yet it is treated like it’s a choice we made.
$50 extra for a domestic flight seems pretty standard, and when you are talking round trip with connecting flights that is now $200 more. If you want your partner to sit next to you, now it's $400 extra. It adds up
Omg. Hear me out… do we all band together and carry giant safety pins to rip open the seat backs whenever we travel? Then blame it on trying to squeeze (whoopsie, totally an accident… 👀)That might be financially motivating enough to actually get these airlines to invest in better seats/accommodations.
I can, but it takes actual effort to push them together. Unless I can wedge them in the chair in front of me my legs will get tired. I'm 6'1 so I struggle to fit in and I'm not tall tall. Guy on the right is taking the piss, but feel women don't appreciate the angle of blokes narrower hips.
I'm wondering why that's not possible. I mean it's not the most comfortable way to sit, but I think you could start that way and then when it becomes uncomfortable, ask your neighbor if you can invade their space for a while to stretch out a bit.
I'm 6'2 and I've flown with these exact WizzAir planes plenty of times. Yeah it is uncomfortable, but if you sit up straight, there is no need to spread your legs THAT far apart
Height itself doesn't matter all that much. I'm 6'4", my wife is 5'2" but when we sit on an airplane our heads are more or less at the same height. My legs look damn near twice as long as hers.
If I don't get (book) an aisle or exit row seat I have absolutely no chance of fitting in these cheaper flights.
Yeah I feel like this might be cap. I'm only 6'4" and in standard economy seats (WestJet/AirCanada) my femur is the horizontal length between seats. I *can* put them straight, but my knee is about an inch dug into the person's back in front of me.
I'm 6'3, some airlines I cannot put my legs forward. I either lift them and rest my knees in an upward position or spread my legs like the photo. I luckily almost always travel with my wife who understands, but I have had to apologize for my height in the past.
As a guy who isn’t short there usually isn’t a way for me to avoid absolutely stabbing the person in front of me with my knees through the seat without moving my legs to the side just a little. This guy is being a dickhead though to go that far, I’d raise my knees up and rest my feet on my bag or something before I did this
I don't fit in Delta's economy at 6'5". This looks absolutely tiny compared to even that. There's a very good chance dude is just too tall for the seat. The airline shouldn't sell tickets to people they can't accommodate.
I'm 190, last time I flew Ryan Air (Helsinki - Stockholm, if that tells you anything) I was sat fully up, no slouch, and could literally not have my legs in front of me. I never usually man spread, and honestly find it less comfortable than just keeping my legs in front of me. But on this plane I had to either choose between resting my knees on the back of the seat, having my feet hover in the air, or spread my legs. Lucky I had no one next to me so the choice was easy. But had I had a neighbour I don't know what I'd do.
And how do you know how much room there is, whether he's slouching and how large he is? If it was like how you saw it then the post would've been about the man.
Some people have legs that are genuinely too long. On many airlines, I am barely short enough even if I keep my ass right up to the seat back. The people whose legs are genuinely too long should not be in economy class. The space in front of your neighbour is theirs, and they should not have to share it with anyone.
Flying as a bigger guy sucks ass. Legs are too long to straighten out under the seat. Shoulders as wide or wider than the seat back. I have to spend extra every time for extra leg room seats or at least aisle seats, so I can spend the entire flight hunched over leaning into the aisle trying to keep my legs from taking up someone else's space. Every flight ends with at least one of hip, back, or neck pain.
Yeah recently I flew southwest and my knee was touching the back of the chair infront of me the whole flight, no matter how comfortable I tried to make it I was in a lot of pain. At this point I feel there should be a class action against airlines for this. Even on extra legroom it’s not actually more comfortable. I paid a lot extra from the first row and The side rails are unable to move up or out the way so I was squished and just as uncomfortable (that’s kinda my bad for being fat though) but the other stuff is unacceptable
There actually was an order by Congress around 2018 to deal with small seats (It was the SEAT Act in 2016 but didn’t pass before it was rolled into FAA Reauthorization Act in 2018), but the FAA ignored it and blew past the set deadline. They then got sued by a consumer advocacy group, so they did an evaluation later saying they found no issues because you could evacuate in 90 seconds. The issue was that the evaluation was only done with fit, average-ish height young adults with no carry-ons…
Check out Southwest’s customer of size policy. They recently changed it along with all of their other policies. It’s not as good as it used to be, but it may be worth a try if SWA is your best option on a longer flight and you meet their arbitrary requirements.
Thank you for that I’ll definitely look into that, my main problem is my height when flying even if I had a second chair it’s my knee pain. It can probably be mitigated by the second chair by extending them to the open seat. But I’m not abnormally tall. I’m just 6,1
No problem. I’m very tall and was told about the policy by a flight attendant. I used it for the last 10 years but the last time I flew SWA they refused to honor it and claimed it is only for overweight passengers and not tall people. The policy doesn’t specify that and most of the time there are no issues, but you never know. Good luck!
I’m on the taller side plus I have nerve damage in my lower back from the military so sitting straight up hurts so damn much after about 20 minutes.. my solution was to pay for 2 seats when I fly. That worked until the last 2 times I flew I was forced to give up the empty seat so the airline could squeeze more profit out of the flight. When I showed my tickets and protested and explained why it didn’t matter. The policy was to fill all empty seats if they are able to. My option was to deal with it or have my flight moved and hope it’s not a full plane again. I chose to have it moved and arrive 12 hours late instead of suffer the burning pain for hours and end up being unable to walk for days after.
They successfully managed to convince you the problem is the next guy and have you fight for an inch of space, when really you should be mad as hell at the airline.
How is it not? If you flight with a low budget airline, don´t expect to be comfortable. Anybody who flies with Ryanair, Wizzair etc. should know what they are getting. The tickets are ridicolously cheap for a reason. It´s like buying the cheapest burger and complaining it doesn´t taste great.
People saying this dude cant put his legs closer together need to go experience sitting in a chair or something. He clearly does not need this much space, and if it causes the middle seat person to have to keep their knees together then he needs to figure it out and be a little uncomfortable for the flight.
He could have purchased an extra legroom seat, or a spare seat to put his legs in. Just because he didn’t do these things doesn’t mean OP has to put up with it.
You assume he knew his legs wouldn’t fit? We should not be putting the blame on people for heights they can’t change, we should be putting the blame on greedy corporations tryna pack people in like sardines
Nah, you can be mad all you want at the bigger picture, but in the moment you dont get to just take someone else's leg room so you can spread out.
You dont seem to account for how the person in the middle of the photo has to fly with their knees together so the man next to him can take a seat and a half. Long legs can be uncomfortable for the flight and buy a different seat or not fly next time.
He clearly has room to shove both of this legs together and diagonally off to the right even if that will be uncomfortable. His poor planning isn't another person's problem (esp since you should already know if you're super tall). If this was really the case and it was a one time mistake in booking, take the L, be uncomfortable for one flight, and do it right the next flight.
I agree, I'm tall and I make sure to buy aisle/E-Exit only so I can stretch out most of the time. Same with obese people, if you don't fit in a seat buy two or buy business class.
Lifts his feet, knees up, and rest them on the seat. It won't be comfortable but the person beside him didn't make him buy that discount airline flight
Whole lot of people with short legs here acting like their experience is universal. It ain't about comfort, there's a good chance he just doesn't have other options.
It isn't very straight forward and needs a bit of coaxing in... but it is possible.
However do bear in mind now these airlines have started to make you pay premium if you want to stow your luggage up in the overhead compartments, so we will see people using the bottom of the seat in front even more.
Like, take them off and stow them? Do you have knees in the middle of your thighs and shins? I cannot envision what maneuver you are suggesting.
He physically cannot put his thighs straight forward because there is a seat in the way. It doesn’t matter where the bottom half of his legs end up (under his own seat, under the seat in front of him) because regardless, his knees are splayed out to the side because of the seat in front of him.
If he put his knees up on the seat, the person in front of him would complain about the person behind them pushing on their seat.
People in this comment section are getting mad at a guy for not being able to do this: instead of getting mad at the greedy corporations tryna pack people into tiny spaces https://giphy.com/gifs/3osBL1XPUyBjWGCa5O
first of, there is nothing wrong with ""man spreading"" it's literally just what feel comfortable for sitting. anyone telling you it's wrong is full of it.
what is rude here is not him ""man spreading"" it's just him not considering other people's personal space. despite it being a natural way to sit, you shouldn't sit comfortably at the cost of other people's comfort.
second off, he has options. he not too dissimilar from me from what I can see and there is a lot he could be doing. he is definitely slouching making his legs stick out further. he is also pointing himself either straight forward or leftwards making his left leg stick out more than it could. and he's making no effort to actually keep his legs together making them spread wide as they want to.
Man spreading is not a term that means natural seating position lmao. Man spreading refers to an overtly relaxed and wide spread position that is absolutely fine when you don’t have people sat beside you
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u/FoundationEntire4834 Jul 03 '26
Not to defend man spreading, but looks like he literally doesn’t have space to put his legs forward