A viral video is proving exactly why you should keep your plane window shut during air travel—especially for the sake of those around you.
Kelly Meng was on a flight from Chicago to Tokyo when a passenger in her row refused to shade the window despite the discomfort it caused other passengers. In fact, the woman occupying the window seat beside Meng was the only person to keep her window shade open for the duration of the 15-hour flight.
A passenger with sun in his eyes asked her to dim the shade 5 hours into the flight, and she made a minimal adjustment to the shade. When a flight attendant who claimed she received a complaint from the other side of the plane where the single open shade was causing bright sunlight to blind other passengers asked her to dim the shade, the window seat passenger flat out refused.
“I shit you not,” Meng said in a clip shared on Jan. 22, 2026, “this girl deadass looks at the authority figure, the flight attendant, and says, ‘I'm not turning it down even lower. It's like 75% down.’”
A heated online debate about plane windows
Meng described the controversial window shade event in a TikTok video reply to a Threads post from @jeffmorgen that read, “Can we re-normalize leaving the windows open on daytime flights? I’m flying over the beautiful Caribbean in a dark metal tube right now.”
The TikTok creator replied, “No, please,” reasoning that on long, nonstop international flights, people try to sleep. Not to mention harsh sunlight from an open shade could potentially torture someone in the next row over. Meng was shocked that the woman in the window seat doubled down, refusing to dim her shade after multiple requests. “The lack of self-awareness is insane,” she said. “I would be so embarrassed.”
Who’s really in charge of the window shades on the airplane?
According to an article from air travel publication View from the Wing, the passenger at the window controls their own shade, and the flight crew has authority above passengers.
Flight attendants will require shades to be up during takeoff and landing for safety precautions. While at cruising altitude, issues like cabin temperature or sun glare can prompt the flight crew to require window shade adjustments.
Meng’s post sparked a debate about plane etiquette, racking up nearly 100 thousand views and over 4 thousand comments on TikTok. Some commenters held rigid positions. @epicannie wrote, “If you buy the window seat you control the window.”
Others pointed to a picture Meng shared of the passenger shielding his face from brutal rays of light at 30 thousand feet and begged for a little compassion.
“This is such a good example of why society is the way it is today; people are so individualistic instead of contributing to the collective good.”
These comments are crazy. I understand the person who bought the window seat controls the window. But get direct sunlight in the face, have some compassion and consideration.”
“Bring an eye mask. If you didn’t pay for a window seat, you don’t get to control it.”
“That's the airline's fault. The windows' brightness should be controlled by the flight attendants for exactly this type of situation. Like in any car where the driver can control if the windows can go down.”
Kelly Meng did not immediately reply to the Daily Dot's request for comment via TikTok.
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