The businessman whose dispute with a fellow airline passenger over a reclined seat sparked a national debate about air-travel etiquette says he’s embarrassed by the way the confrontation unfolded and that he regrets his behavior.
But don’t expect James Beach to stop using the Knee Defender, a $22 gadget that attaches to a passenger’s tray table and prevents the person in front from reclining. He just plans to be nicer about it.
“I’m pretty ashamed and embarrassed by what happened,” Beach told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “I could have handled it so much better.”
The argument became so tense that the pilots of the Aug. 24 fight diverted the Boeing 737 to Chicago. An AP story about the incident started a broad public discussion of whether passengers should be allowed to recline. In the days that followed, two other flights were diverted under similar circumstances.
Beach, 48, reached out to The Associated Press to clarify a few things about the episode, primarily that he initially complied with flight attendant instructions to remove the device.
For the record, he said, he never reclines his seat.
“You have the right, but it seems rude to do it,” said Beach, who is 6 feet 1 inch tall.
The dispute occurred on the final leg of Beach’s trip back to his home near Denver. He had been in Moscow on business and was given a middle seat for the leg from Newark, New Jersey, to Denver. Beach took out his laptop to review a contract for his company, which develops waste recycling facilities, primarily in Russia. He used the Knee Defender — a Christmas gift a few years ago from his wife — to prevent the woman in front from reclining.
U.S. airlines prohibit use of the Knee Defender, but the devices are not illegal.
“I put them in maybe a third of the time. Usually, the person in front tries (to recline) their seat a couple of times, and then they forget about it,” Beach said. The device comes with a courtesy card to tell passenger that you’ve blocked them, but he doesn’t use it.
“I’d rather just kind of let them think the seat is broken, rather than start a confrontation,” he said.
Beach, who said he flies 75,000 to 100,000 miles a year, wasn’t so lucky this time.
When the flight attendants came through the cabin to serve beverages, the woman said her seat was broken. That’s when Beach told one of them about the Knee Defender. The flight attendant asked him to remove the device, and Beach said he did.
“As soon I started to move it, she just full force, blasted the seat back, right on the laptop, almost shattered the screen. My laptop came flying onto my lap,” he said.
Beach complained, saying that he couldn’t work like that, but the flight attendant informed him that the woman had the right to recline. Both passengers were sitting in United’s Economy Plus section, which offers 4 more inches of legroom than the rest of coach.
His reply: “You asked me to let her recline a few inches, and she just took 100 percent of it.”
That’s when Beach’s anger boiled over. He said he pushed the woman’s seat forward and put the Knee Defender back in. The woman stood up and threw a cup of soda — not water, as previously reported water — at him.
It was the first time anybody had ever thrown a drink at him.
“It was really just surreal and shocking. Did that just happen?” Beach recalls. “I said, ‘I hope you brought your checkbook because you just threw your Sprite all over my $2,000 laptop.'”
The flight attendant stepped in quickly and moved the woman to another seat.
“I said a lot of things I shouldn’t have said to the flight attendant: some bad words, what’s your name and ‘I can’t believe you’re treating me like this,'” he recalled.
The pilots then changed course for Chicago — a decision that Beach said “amazed” him.
“The plane was dead quiet for the rest of that flight,” he added. “Nobody said a word.”
Ira Goldman, who invented the Knee Defender, said the passengers on the other diverted flights got upset after their knees and head were hit by reclining seats. He said airlines are “trying to wish this problem away.”
His solution: Install seats that slide forward within a shell to recline or to allow the use of his device, which has been sold since 2003.
“They’re selling the same space twice — to me to sit down and then inviting people to put their seat backs there as well,” he said.
When the plane landed in Chicago, police escorted Beach and the woman off. Neither police, nor the airline or the Transportation Security Administration has released any information about the passenger seated in front of Beach.
No criminal or civil charges were brought against them, but United would not let them continue on to Denver.
Beach says he spent the night at an airport hotel and then caught a flight home the next morning. He flew Spirit Airlines. It has no reclining seats.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
12 Responses
I agree with him. I don’t know how it is determined that there is a “right to recline.” I don’t think the fact that the button is on the seat in front proves anything. My car also has a gas pedal, but that doesn’t mean I have a “right to hit” the cars in front of me.
Why do inconsiderate people insist on pushing their seats back.
They’re comfortable & selfish , while the passenger behind them is being tortured.
He’s a self-righteous jerk who still doesn’t see that he’s dead wrong. He has no right to deprive someone else of the ability to lean a seat back – if he wants more room, he should fly business class.
an Israeli Yid
ah rich people are so stuck up
the begining of the end of reclining seats on passenger aircraft!!!
I also fly 100k miles a year – and the airlines are 100% at fault for this. its all about maximizing profits on the backs of the flyers. If you are not the average size adult – and i am not even talking weight – but height – as in this case, there is no room. now i sit in economy – everyone else in coach is in economy minus, thats because econmy plus is the old economy. once while sitting in economy minus a passenger in front of me decided to lean his seat all the way back. gave him a little zetz. when he complained to me he said that he paid for his seat – told mine wasnt free either and i had to put my knees somewhere – so either it would be in his back or we could reach a compromise. we reached a compromise.
Passengers should have the right to recline especially on long flights so they can sleep, which is hard enough to do even while reclining. However the airlines should give more seat room. They just want to rake in the money at the expense of passengers. I have been flying for years and the service is getting worse all the time. We used to be able to take 2, 70 lb. pieces of luggage overseas and now it is one stingy 50 lb. valise, $100 for the second checked bag (50 lb.)and another $200 for the third. If chas vesholom your checked luggage is only 1/2 lb. over 50, there is no leeway, you have to fix it or pay.Now they want to take away any minimum comfort we can possibly have. I’m only 5’2″ B”H so I can get by with the amount of legroom, but tall people really have it hard and ,most of us can’t afford business class. At mealtimes they should not allow reclining and perhaps can compromise how much time passengers are allowed to recline so the people behind them can use their trays for laptops. Flying used to be exciting and fun, now it is just annoying.
Just both ppl recline ur seats
This whole problem is the fault of the airlines who pack people in like sardines. Unless the FAA mandates some minimum space requirement between seats, they will continue to do this.
On a perosnal level, I always sit behind my wife when we fly. She NEVER reclines her seat. It works for me, but she sometimes has a problem.
If the airlines offer reclining seats to the passengers, then they are within their rights to use it. If the guy in back has an issue, he should ask to have his seat changed.
I know that on long flights I like to snooze and do best with the seat tilted back.
I was on a flight a few years ago, squeezed into economy with my wife next to me, and my one year old on my lap (as under twos can’t get their own seat), and another passenger on the other side.
In the row in front were two 70+ year old ladies, with a spare seat between them.
One of the ladies politely asked me to stop my child banging her chair, which I did.
A few minutes later, she then had no problem in fully leaning her chair back into the space shared by me (6 foot 1 inch) and my child!!! That’s when I had enough and told her that I can try to stop my child banging her seat, but if she leans back into us, not a chance. No problems for the rest of the flight (though I always regret not suggesting that since she has a spare seat next to her, maybe she take my child for the flight!).
Just another reason that flying has become so unpleasant. Even without the seat reclined, you’re basically fenced in on all sides. Maybe seats on short haul flights should be designed to only recline minimally, but what about overnight flights to Israel?
The airline industry has totally sacrificied its customers in the name of profits. Not all of us can afford to fly business class, or even economy plus.