Is it ok to recline your seat while flying? A new petition says no [Video]

Spilled drinks, crunched laptop screens and crushed knees.

A new video shows the reasons why reclining your seat on airplanes morphed from an acceptable practice into a top irritant for many air passengers.  

The video is part of an ad campaign launched in late November by the furniture company La-Z-Boy, which includes a petition imploring travelers to “Do the upright thing. Don’t recline when you fly.”

The petition had more than 186,000 signatures as of Monday, a La-Z-Boy representative told CNBC Travel.

The tongue-in-cheek campaign by the company, known for its plush oversized reclining chairs, touches on an increasingly hot-button issue, one stoked by growing passenger sizes and dwindling seat pitches.

Unlike drunkenness and hygiene issues — such as clipping fingernails and taking off shoes — which are widely disdained by fellow passengers, opinions on seat reclining mainly fall into two camps: those who say don’t do it, and others who argue the recline button exists for a reason. …