The passenger who touched off a media firestorm over use of the ‘knee defender’ and who caused a United flight from Newark to Denver speaks out.
Scott Mayerowitz of the Associated Press scored an interview with James Beach, the man who touched off the firestorm.
And all I can say is… wow.
On the one hand he says he is “embarrassed by the way the confrontation unfolded and that he regrets his behavior.” The knee defender is against the rules at all of the major US airlines and he acknowledges that passengers have a right to recline their seat, but he plans to continue to use it anyway.
Here’s how he goes about it:
“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.
Here’s how he describes the situation having gone down:
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.
Apparently when the flight diverted to Chicago, and he was not allowed to continue on to Denver, he bought a ticket the next day on Spirit (which flies once-daily O’Hare to Denver). He’s 6’1″. Spirit’s economy seats have 28 inches of pitch, compared to 35 inches in economy plus on a United Airbus. Hope he was happy with Spirit’s non-reclining seats.
Although of course the woman sitting in front of him shouldn’t have thrown her drink, I can understand her frustration. I certainly hope I never find myself seated in front of this gentleman, and I do try not to recline or at least not recline all the way when seated in coach with someone behind me.
The problem here was clearly James Beach, don’t you agree?
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An easy solution is for the airlines to provide a fine or using the devices…like hotels do for smoking in a room (or airlines for that matter). Not many people will be willing to risk a $100 fine to prevent the person in front of them from reclining.
If there were ever a time NOT to give an interview to a reporter, this is it.
What a goof.
I’m actually kind of surprised that it’s not actually illegal — not only against airline rules — to interfere with equipment on the aircraft in this way.
Giving the representation they’re getting from this guy, perhaps the company will consider renaming the device the “Knee Offender”.
Yes, I agree, he’s definitely the problem and sounds like will continue to be. I agree with the second commenter, too, what a goof.
He should be on the No-Fly list.
He’s not the only problem. She could have been a LOT more thoughtful and diplomatic. I’ve had too many people slam the seats back all the way — one while I had my head down trying to get to my purse under the seat. I’m lucky he didn’t break my neck. I find her behavior much nastier than his.
Except for night flights, the seats shouldn’t recline any more than a couple degrees to accommodate people with back issues unless the airlines want to start giving us a lot more room between seats.
I disagree. He might be a goof but I don’t blame him for using the device. To me it’s like putting 4 adults into a tiny car. If the two people in the front seat put the seats all the way back and/or recline into the two victims in the back that would be rude right? No difference on an airplane. Seated in economy plus I wouldn’t think you would need the device normally though.
I’m actually surprised that the FAA doesn’t make it illegal that seats with small pitch recline at all as it would keep people from exiting properly in an emergency.
I know a bunch of people on here will disagree with me on this issue but it’s just my opinion and experience on this.
It’s totally her right to recline her seat if she wants to, all passengers are equal and I wonder if he himself reclined his seat. I think it’s ridiculous for adults to be behaving this way tbh!
James sure sounds like a Beach.
He should use it wearing a straight jacket inside a padded cell. He sure is pointing his way toward one.
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Of course she can recline 100%
The seat control is totally up to the customer. If you don’t like the seat controls, complain to the airline… If you don’t like the the recline of the seat then fly biz/first or fly another airlines with less recline. Why tell the other person not to do something that was clearly intended for the traveler to do? I mean, she also paid for the seat.
Buy a smaller laptop, fly bulkhead, suck it up. these are the things one can do without affecting other people.
If the airline banned it and he continued to use it, the airline should bar him from flying their carrier. Either you agree to the rules or you don’t fly. As for the flight attendant, he/she should have told him the airline does not permit it (like no use of cell phone phones after the door is shut even tho it is not a safety hazard) and told him not obeying his/her order is a Federal violation of 14 CFR 91.3(4) and 14 CRF 125.328 and he is subject to arrest upon landing. With full flights, cattle car seating, and airline staff worried about their safety and the safety of the flight there is no justification to allow people to make their own rules of behavior and allow them to do what they want.
I was on a flight on Monday, and the person in front of me reclined fully all the time while she played on her laptop. It makes things pretty miserable when your tray table is open. As soon as the plane touched down, she reclined again!
Yep, he is definitely the problem. If Airlines did not WANT seats to recline (such as Spirit) they would not build the seats that way. But on every (DL, UA, AA) flight they tell us to “Sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight”. It’s for a reason. It is hysterical that he had to fly Spirit, with FAR less legroom… but he is not too smart is he? He does not learn… hope he ends up being arrested next time for failing to follow F/A instruction.
When you select a seat, you’re also selecting the seat in front of you technically. If this guy wasn’t an idiot, he’d know that there are bulkheads (no seat in front of you) and rows behind/in emergency exits that have limited or no recline.
I think the tipping point for me is when he “pushed” her seat all the way back up and re-applied the knee defender.. what did he think was going to happen?
Did neither of these people go to kindergarten? Are neither of them married? Compromise people, it’s a 4 hr flight. TALK to each other.. Do you think if he said “I have a very important presentation I’m prepping and need to work” instead of “You asked me to let her recline a few inches, and she just took 100 percent of it.” it would have ended in DEN not ORD?
My two cents….the situation was totally mishandled. FA should have told him to remove the blocks…at the point he did no she should have notified him that if he doesn’t he is in violation (like Steve said) and would would be dealt with by the authorities upon landing. The one who was out of control was the lady who threw her drink.
I still don’t know that it warranted bringing the flight down. Was the airline really worried about their safety from this knothead keeping his knee defenders in place?
You have a right to recline and purchase a ticket to sit in a different kind of seat if you don’t like the way that it works compared to the one in front of you. 100% this idiot’s fault. There should be a fine for using these devices. I would have broken his tray table off to prevent him from being able to use it. Like when someone puts their feet up on my arm rest or pushes into my back through the seat in economy, you better be ready to deal with a hurt foot and I have 0 regrets doing so.
It was all James Beach’s fault. He should have thought to move his laptop before taking out the seat defender. I hope he enjoys flying Spirit. I can’t blame the woman – he shoved her seat forward, which probably hurt.
What a jackwad. He deserves to have the things shoved down his throat. If he wants more room then pay to sit in F class, and if he can’t afford it, then hello Spirit $9 Club!
If the seats recline, people have a right to recline them. Personally, I will only do it if I want to sleep or if someone in front of me reclines (which is their right). I’m not going to go all snively and sneaky about it by buying these stupid little devices. They only incite and create confrontations. Airlines would be wise to ban their use (some already do).
He needs to be held financially accountable for causing the flight diversion, and probably banned for life from United. He’s already cost them more than they were ever likely to make from his business with his reckless and criminal (disobeying FA’s instructions) behavior that prompted the diversion. Maybe that will change his attitude.
I feel this way about pretty much anyone using this device, but with his attitude everything goes triple.
If you make *your* side of the story sound this bad when telling it…it is a good sign you’re coming from an indefensible position.
To those that somehow think using this vandalism tool is somehow acceptable…it isn’t. The person sitting in the seat paid for their seat, with all its features, including recline. If you need more room to work (and economy plus has enough room to make this happen in any case, recline or no), pay for it. Otherwise, accept that you are paying for transportation and a habitable seat (which current seats are just fine for).
It’s not like this is some guy that could barely fit into the seat, either. He’s only 6’1″.
Seems to me that we are dealing with two selfish and mean people. He appears to have been more selfish and she was meaner. Neither is exactly someone who I would want as a neighbor. Speaking of neighbors, I wonder what his neighbors on either side of him were thinking/doing/saying when he was inserting the contraption. Airlines have made flying so miserable that they serve as testing grounds for civility. And a lot of people seem to be lacking in civility. On the other hand, if both of them are 48 (as was reported), some might say, “They’re both Fire Horse – what do you expect?”
Buy a Knee Defender now and you’ll get three accompanying products:
1)a Brain Expander, which, by raising your IQ to average, will lead you to conclude that there’s no reason to ever use the blocks
2)a Face Protector for when other passengers start beating your face in if you use the blocks
3) an iPad, so that when the person in front of you reclines their seat you still have enough room to type away and pretend to get work done
Yeah, it’s pretty clear that this is a problem human being. He was and is looking to get into fights. He should be banned from flying in my humble opinion since he thinks the rules don’t apply to him.
This woman should have complained once while videotaping the complaint. After he pushed the seat up, she should have sucked it up until after the flight. Upon landing I would immediately go to customer service and demand, at least, a full refund of the flight (probably some miles too) . If she pays for a flight, which includes the ability to recline, and another passenger prevented her from utilizing a service included in the cost, she should not have to pay for that flight. If the airline refused, I’d make it as much of a PR disaster as I could by releasing the video on social media. Personally I hope this jackhole sis behind me one day…that’s a free flight in my book!
Love this guy! Not because of his behavior but because he has raised the legroom (or rather lack thereof) issue to page one news. Would be nice if bloggers would devote more time to flight comfort issues rather than hawking credit cards. Sadly if things keep going the wrong direction it may be necessary to issue more federal regs, which means higher costs for everyone.
The question is not whether to follow FA instructions (“always” is the right answer”) but rather the proper use of knee defender. I would hope we can all agree that passengers have a right not to have their knees or laptops suddenly smashed by seat recline – it would seem the proper course is for FAs to ask that they be removed on request while cautioning the recliner to go slow. Having the right to recline does not mean the right to slam your seat back – I always do it slowly.
In this case JB was wrong to lie to the passenger in front of him, just as she was wrong to slam her seat back and toss water at him.
Of course the big irony here (as Gary has noted) is that both were seated in UA E+ which provides plenty of legroom, even when seats are reclined. Spirit is where you would expect the fighting…
I was flying, back in the day, from Stuttgart to JFK on my TWA Red Card in Business, when after the meal was all cleared in the cabin I looked back, saw it was all-clear with the passenger behind me (tray put away, guy just sitting there), and lowered my seat back. About 5 seconds later, on my way to settling in for a nap, the guy uses both hands and shoves the seat forward as hard as he can, practically launching me. It was a genuine WTF moment! I stood up, turned around, made eye contact (both of us now in a rage) and caught myself from physically assaulting him. (I can feel the pain and rage of the woman who threw her drink.) Instead, I walked into the galley and told a flight attendant what just happened, and was reseated elsewhere in business. Just thinking about it now unsettles my karma.
Some people really have no business being in an airplane. There’s no place for rage or antisocial behavior, given the worst case impact that an altercation can have on the whole community in that thin metal tube.
The guy clearly needs to be on the no-fly list, and should have faced serious consequences for blowing off the F/A. He is genuinely dangerous as a provocation to anyone sitting in front of him. The woman who threw her drink needs to be counseled on how to take a deep breath or three and patiently wait till later to complain to the airline: that the F/A’s need to be trained to act with authority when a passenger disregards their orders, and if necessary get the captain to have the police ready for the passenger at the destination gate. It’s scary to think that this guy is still out there flying, and possibly giving encouragement to others to be loose cannons on commercial passenger flights.
Two selfish people collide.
I don’t even begin to understand all of the seat reclining controversy. Jeez, I’m just happy if the person next to me/in front of me/wherever close by decides to shower before getting on the plane! One time that didn’t happen I spent the most uncomfortable 5 hours of my life IAH to SMF desperately snuggled against the side of the aircraft wishing I could open the window. Talk about being uncomfortable!
If you don’t want people rightfully reclining into “your” space, get a bulkhead seat.
One just needs to look at photos from “the golden age of air travel.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/Travel/photos/golden-age-air-travel-18629377
Those seats reclined much farther than most economy seats today, except TODAY those two women in the Comet 4 would’ve been throwing drinks at each other.
A key point is that this was Economy Plus. The pitch there is greater than standard pitch ever has been, at least within my several decades of memory. If he can’t handle a seat reclining in front of him in Economy Plus he really needs to be buying a seat in a premium cabin.
I wait for him outside and knock him off with his knee defender.
James Beach was deliberately a jackass, and inconsiderate, several times during the course of the flight. His actions weren’t “reactions”, they were slow and deliberate. He felt like he deserved some of the space that the person in front of him paid for. What a sense of entitlement. I’m pretty disgusted that he doesn’t have any repercussions for his misbehavior.
And I feel foolish that each time my seat seems “broken”, I haven’t asked about it. Until Gary posted the original story, I’d never heard of Knee Defender. I bet some of those “broken seats” were actually people behind me using the Defender and snickering about how they outsmarted me.
They’re the same type of people who grab items out of other people’s shopping carts instead of finding their own. Or who sneakily cut in front of others in line. People willing to cheat others.
The world’s full of selfish losers sadly. Here’s a prime one who’s taking his 15 minutes of fame. Idiot.
I fully sympathize with Beach. I don’t mind if the person in front of me chooses to recline–I agree it is their right. What I object to is that most of them are inconsiderate louts who simply SLAM their seat back with no warning.
Like Mr. Beach I had my new Dell laptop on the tray table and was watching a video. The clod in front of me simply slammed the seat back with no warning and crcaked the screen on the laptop. It put me out of business on my business trip and cost me several hundred dollars to replace the screen.
Please—If you wish to recline your seat, you have the right. However,COMMON COURTESY would suggest that you might want to alert the person behind you so you don’t upset their drinks, break anything they may have on the tray table or smash their knees. Is that too much to ask???
That jerk should have bought business, bet you he barely made it to this flight. Lets see how that redresss number works out for him!
I’d be a lot happier if no seats reclined. I think it’s rude of others to take up what little space those of us who fly coach have. I never recline unless forced into it by the person reclining fully in front of me. Even then, if I see a tall person behind me who is awake, I won’t recline.
yes
She should have been charged with assault as well.
But the real problem lies with the airlines. It is not possible to use your tray table for a laptop or much else if the person in front reclines too far. All seats should be adjusted to only recline a few degrees, unless you are on long flights. And even then, there needs to be respect for the person behind and their ability to use their space. The airlines have simply ignored the fact that the world has changed, (laptops being prevalent, for example) and have even made matters worse by squeezing people ever closer. Yes, he could have gotten a different set, but again, the airlines in their infinite wisdom (read greed) charge more for those seats. He should not have to pay more to use the space that should have been his to begin with.
Isn’t it time for a passengers’ bill of rights (with teeth)?
Both were wrong and are reflective of the lack of courtesy in society today. That “me first; the hell with you” attitude is exacerbated in the close quarters forced upon us by the airlines.
By the way, for all of you who suggested he buy business or sit in a bulkhead, come on. Not everyone can afford business or has the miles to upgrade and the bulkhead isn’t always available.
No, I absolutely do not agree. The problem was the absolute jerk with the recline button. The space in front of you is yours. The space behind you belongs to the person behind you.
The fact that the airline has given you the ability to be an inconsiderate thug does not lessen your guilt for being one.
Don’t recline your seat when somebody is behind you. What are we, 8 years old? Sitting upright for a couple hours is such a hardship we’re willing to jam a seat into somebody face (and knees for a lot of us)? The seats shouldn’t recline to begin with. I sit in a chair at work for 8 hours a day, never felt the pressing need to kick back 30 degrees.
I agree. Beach lost me at: ” He said he pushed the woman’s seat forward and put the Knee Defender back in.”
That takes some force and I’d guess it wasn’t very pleasant for the lady sitting in front of him.
Here’s what Beach had a right to do:
Lady reclines
Beach: Excuse me, ma’am, I’m working on a very important project, would you mind not reclining right now?
Lady: Yes or no.
Beach accepts the other passenger’s decision.
I wonder what they would complain of in the good old days of flying. Why is it all the pax fault when the airlines provide such a horrible product & experience nowadays & is the only business that’s gets away with abusing pax and we pay for that experience.
@reefer21
You pay for it, so they provide it. If you were willing to pay for first class, or business you would have a much different experience. They need to cover their costs and make a profit. You get what you pay for.
I’m 6’3 and don’t need a knee defender, my legs are so crammed into the seats that people in front can’t recline no matter how hard they try. I just push back a bit with my legs and they can’t move it at all. I really enjoy the frustrated sighs when they finally give up and realize they are going to be sitting up on this flight.
I think we need to look at this situation in context and based on the facts:
1. Woman tries to recline seat. Cannot. Calls FA
2. FA notices Knee Defender and asks him to remove it.
3. Woman reclines seat all the way back
4. Man complains to FA that seat is reclined too much, pushes seat back forward, and reinstalls knee defender.
5. Woman stands & douses him with soda.
The exaggerations and things we should leave to interpretation are:
1. how quickly/”forcefully” she reclined her seat.
2. How many times she had tried to recline her seat thinking it was stuck before she called the FA and the frustration one would feel in not being able to recline.
3. His and her tone/attitude in responding to the FA on the initial request and subsequent
4. The tone of the FA in managing this situation
The key point:
1. Man disobeyed the FA instructions in installing and then Reinstalling the knee defender which he knew before the flight and was reminded of by the FA.
So regardless of whether we think reclining is a necessary courtesy/rule, he disobeyed airline rules and FA instruction. Thus he is fully in the wrong. I’m surprised this is the first time he got any provocation. It goes to show you how civil and conciliatory 99% of other passengers typically are (including those on this feed/board including Gary) to have not gotten caught until now….thousands of flight miles later.
Let’s make it simple. How about the new seats–not very widely installed–where the back “shell” of the seat is relatively fixed (just a small amount of recline). However, the back cushion itself tilts within the shell & the bottom cushion slides forward. When the passenger reclines, they use up some of their own personal space. Everyone has a fairly consistent amount of space front to back. (Sorry–can’t help out if a larger person is sitting next to you). It is truly the right solution. Why isn’t this being used more whenever new seats are installed?
I still don’t see the reason to divert the flight. It’s not like these two children were in danger of crashing the plane. Flying is the worst.
@ Greg D,
For the life of me, I cannot determine how you state with such authority what space belongs to whom. Really now, beyond it being your own view of the world, what do you cite as authority on this issue? The contract of carriage? Some obscure provision in the Warsaw Convention?
The fact is it is up for the airlines to decide whether passengers use their seats’ design features. And most have spoken clearly – the knee defender must not be used. From this I infer a conclusion that the space subject to recline “belongs” (much as I hate the suggestion of entitlement) to the person who has the option to consume it by reclining.
With this in mind, certain courtesies exist with respect to how and when one reclines. But the baseline is clear.
This is the first I have heard that the dude kicked the chair forward. That is battery and he should do time.