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If you can't lean back in your airline seat, you might blame the big guy sitting behind you and a small block of plastic called the Knee Defender.
Tall travelers are snapping up the new product that prevents the seat in front of them from reclining, said inventor Ira Goldman, a 6-foot-3 former congressional aide who lives in Washington, D.C.
He said nearly 1,000 of the pocket-size blocks, priced at $9.95 each, have sold since Sept. 25 on his Web site. (Slogan: "Standing up for the right of the tall guy to sit down.")
The Knee Defender, which wedges between an arm of the user's tray table and the seat in front, has ignited a contentious debate on Internet chat rooms.
The point and counterpoint: Where does one passenger's right to recline end and another's right to leg room begin in the sardine-can confines of a typical coach cabin? In other words, does the Knee Defender give the passenger-behind an unfair advantage in the perennial fight for cabin space with the passenger-ahead?
Faced with one more potential flash point in a time of jittery passengers, airlines and authorities are scrambling to decide where they stand.
At the Federal Aviation Administration, spokesman Christopher White said the agency strictly mandates design and installation standards and prohibits anyone from installing equipment "that would alter how the seat performs." He said it's up to airlines to enforce the rules.
Northwest Airlines said it will ban the Knee Defender due to safety concerns. The carrier put the device on different types of seats and found that if someone forced the seat to recline, the tray table assembly could break, said spokeswoman Mary Stanik.
"If the seat is damaged, including the tray table, in flight, it may adversely affect passenger evacuation in the event of an emergency," she said.
Delta Air Lines is reviewing whether to prohibit or limit use of Knee Defender for safety reasons and to prevent complaints from customers who want to recline, said spokeswoman Peggy Estes.
On his Web site, www.kneedefender.com Goldman acknowledges that customers must comply if flight attendants tell them not to use the device. Interfering with flight crew members in their duties violates FAA rules and can result in civil penalties.
And he insists customers should use the Knee Defender to protect their health and safety, not to hog precious space in coach.
"I'd rather have a piece of plastic stop your seat rather than my knees stopping your seat," he said. "If there's going to be a disagreement, it's better to start before the collision than after the collision."
Tight seat space in coach is the biggest complaint of air travelers, said Joe Brancatelli, a veteran business travel writer who runs the Web site JoeSentMe.com.
A 6-footer, Brancatelli said he's endured all the difficulties Goldman talks about from sitting behind a fully reclining passenger. Still, Brancatelli added, as long as airlines sell reclining seats, people have the right to use them.
"How dare some other traveler tell me . . . they have the right to block my ability to do that," Brancatelli said. "It's outrageous."
A former staffer for then-U.S. Sen. Pete Wilson, R-Calif., Goldman says he comes from a family of tinkerers. Among his earlier inventions is a device that measures out kids' toothpaste in pea-size portions so they don't ingest too much fluoride.
On a trans-Atlantic flight in the 1990s, Goldman observed that when the reclined seat in front of him moved up, his tray table's arms opened like a pair of scissors. He figured out that blocking the arms' movement would keep an upright seat from reclining.
"For someone who likes to solve puzzles," Goldman said, "it was an inspiration."
Goldman developed his plastic block with a groove cut down the middle, but he didn't have an advertising budget to market it. Instead, he found a travel columnist whose pet peeves include passengers reclining their seats almost into his lap. Charles Leocha tried the Knee Defender and wrote about it on the Web site, ticked.com.
Word spread on travel Web sites, setting off a lively debate.
On the frequent flier Web site FlyerTalk.com, a traveler identified as ByrdluvsAWACO boasted of his cruder technique to deal with aggressive recliners. "They simply press the button and slam back on the person behind them. . . . I make an extra effort to be rude and bump/kick that person's seat throughout the flight."
A frequent flier called DallasFlyer argued for civility.
"I don't like it when someone slams back . . . and I don't like it when they recline if I am working or have a meal service (not that likely in coach anymore). But, we are talking about there (sic) seat and it has a recline button on it. I wish everyone was considerate."
Goldman's Web site includes a print-and-cut "courtesy card" to hand to passengers in front before they discover their seats have been frozen in place by the Knee Defender. It invites them to ask whether the wedge can be nudged a bit so they can recline their seats just a little.
- Steve Huettel can be reached at huettel@sptimes.com or 813 226-3384.