Who Is Eligible for a Window Shade During Flight?
When you fly, you lose your sense of physical boundaries. You share the armrests with the passengers next to you and that little legroom you have when the passenger reclines in your lap. Naturally, you will seek solace in the little things – for example, in the ability to see the window in the aisle.
On a recent flight, our editor-in-chief Virginia lost this privilege when a passenger sitting next to her at the window closed the curtain upon landing. (She called him “Monster” on Slack.) The window shading controversy has become so heated that even the Wall Street Journal and New York Magazine have taken sides – and not everyone seems to agree. “The shutters on airline windows should always be closed, except when taking off or landing,” Michael Barbaro of the New York Times tweeted .
So who is entitled to the window?
There are several factors to consider. Firstly, you will notice that some flight attendants strongly ask passengers not to remove the curtains on the windows during takeoff or landing; as we wrote earlier , sometimes this is done so that maintenance personnel have better visibility in the event of an emergency. ( AirfareWatchDog notes that none of the airline’s carriage contracts have federal law or regulation on what you can do with window shades, but I would check with service personnel anyway.)
Otherwise, between takeoff and landing, I have long been under the impression that the passenger in the window seat – and only he – has the right to open or close the shade at his own discretion. However, there are two notable exceptions. If it is an early flight and passengers are asleep, the window seat passenger must close the shade completely, whatever their preference.
And the opposite applies to landing, as in the Virginia example. When the pilot announces the landing of the flight, the passenger with the window must always open the shade; for nervous pilots, the open view can be comforting; for everyone else, it’s just nice to see the view from above, rather than the recline seat a few inches away.
What do you think? Who is entitled to a porthole in flight? What are your exceptions?