Is it prohibited to lie down (and fall asleep) on a commercial flight?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 22 Jul, 2023
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As a cabin crew member, we actually have no instructions against it as long as the seatbelt signs are turned off.
The passengers seating policy is clear, seated while take off and landing, seat in upright position and seatbelt is fastened. During flights, the recommendations are to keep the seatbelt fastened to be prepared in case of sudden turbulence.
Actually, the armrests are made movable for that reason, in addition to other reasons (easier cleaning is one of them).
We encourage people in mid/long-haul flights to do so because it makes them feel comfortable (leaving good impression). Also, sleeping passengers will not bother to press the call buttons! We even go one step further and ask awake passengers nicely to close the window shades in case it was a day flight.
Is it dangerous? Yes it is, but not really. Strap yourself before sleeping and you’ll be fine in case of turbulence. This is out of personal experience, people who are in direct danger in case of sudden turbulence are those who are standing, then those who are seated without fastening seatbelts. Others are in danger, but not as much as the aforementioned ones.
It’s not even on the seats that people lay down, but even on the floor besides the entrance close to the toilet on the midnight flights. Possibly everywhere with not much disturbance to the passengers… But you have to be careful while walking.
But I have never tried to lay down on the seats probably because I flew in the summertime…
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On one flight from New York to Amsterdam using Delta airlines I even went to a completely different row altogether to lie down and sleep using 3 or 4 seats there. More people did it since the flight was quite empty and the crew didn’t mind at all.
I regularly do it. In fact I’m usually alert when booking my seat to try and pick the one most likely to have spare seats around it, for this very purpose!
Then once aboard, if people sit next to me, I’m eagerly watching the other rows and will totally jump there if possible, provided another passenger doesn’t beat me to it. And yes, I get beaten to it on a regular basis – so it’s a common thing.
I’ve had air crew tell me as long as I’m buckled in, so I have a seatbelt around me even when lying down, but otherwise never had a problem.
As other answers have said, for this specific case just go ahead. Everyone does when they can!
In general, with this sort of thing, it is always easiest to ask forgiveness than permission. I tend to ask myself “what is the worst that could happen?”. If the answer to that is “they might ask me to stop”, then the worst possible outcome puts me back in the starting position – and there really is no reason not to try.
As an aside, you may struggle to do this on an EasyJet flight. On most of their planes, apart from the front and rear 2 or 3 rows (to facilitate access for the mobility impaired), the armrests are not movable.
This is not prohibited. Technically, you should do it while wearing your seat belt, but I’ve never seen this enforced except during takeoff and landing, or during turbulence.
Last year I was on a Delta flight from Atlanta to London during a severe winter storm, in which almost all passengers missed their flight (due to cancelled inbound flights, or road conditions in Atlanta). Because of the high number of cancellations, nearly every passenger (there were fewer than 50 of us) aboard the 767 had a row to themselves, and the flight crew encouraged us all to lay down and sleep.
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