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Airline Passengers! Is There a “Right to Recline?”
Beware of Schmucks in the Sky!
It’s called the Knee Defender. But I prefer to think of it as the Schmuck Identifier. It was dreamed up by a tall man who was tired of getting his knees slammed whenever the person seated in front of him on an airplane reclined. So he designed a device that, when attached to your tray table, prevents the person in front of you from reclining. At all.
He didn’t just quietly go about protecting his own knees. He marketed the Knee Defender online. Sales took off. And the inflight seat-related skirmishing began!
On one United Airlines flight, a traveler slapped one on his tray table after takeoff, to make sure he’d have sufficient space to use his laptop. When the woman whose seat he was immobilizing asked him to remove it, he refused. She appealed to the flight attendants, who also told him to remove it. He refused. Several times.
So she threw a glass of water at him.
The result? The pilot made an emergency landing, and both passengers were taken off the plane. I didn’t learn about this incident on the nightly news, but on a humor website. Which is where it belongs. Because it‘s ridiculous.
Whatever happened to compromise? And communication? As we tell our children — “Share!” And if…
