The opinion shared by AlcatracNYC to r/unpopularopinion said not sleeping in an aisle seat is an “unwritten rule” similar to ”the middle person getting both arm rest”.
“A person seating In an aisle seat on a plane should not be allowed to sleep,” they said.
“There are some exceptions and those would probably be on any flight longer than 7 hours, you would be allowed to rest. Anything shorter than that, you should not be sleeping.
“The reason why is what if the middle or window needs to go to the bathroom, or if the flight attendant needs to hand them something. You’ll be in the way,
“Also emergencies if something happens the aisle seat will have a slow reaction time because they are just waking up. Now you would be risking people’s life because you fell asleep.”
However, responders were quick to call the Redditor “entitled” and that it was an “unhinged take”.
“If you sleep in an aisle seat you deal with people getting up. That's the unwritten rule,” said one replier.
“Umm, you just wake people up, it’s as simple as that. I always tell the person next to me just to wake me up if I fall asleep in case they are weird about having to wake me up,” added another.
“The window seat should have a large bladder and not eat anything 1-3 days before flying as to not interrupt aisle seat’s sleep,” clapped back one person.
Some Redditors did see the merit in the opinion, but offered an alternative resolution.
“My take on this: if you sleep in the aisle seat, you must be okay with being woken up multiple times to let the folks in your row get up,” they said.
“Other flight rules: middle seat gets the armrest, and window seat must raise the window shade during taxi, takeoff, and landing so the rest of us in the row can watch.”
“Other flight rules: middle seat gets the armrest, and window seat must raise the window shade during taxi, take-off, and landing so the rest of us in the row can watch.”