Airplanes / Aviation, Law Professors

Passengers Should Have To Pay To Recline On An Airplane?

Two law professors argue that passengers should be spending more money.

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Trans_World_Airlines_Lockheed_L-1011-385-1-15_TriStar_100_MarmetThat’s the conclusion a pair of law professors reached when they set out to solve airline rage incidents. Professor Christopher Buccafusco of Cardozo and Professor Christopher Jon Sprigman of NYU noticed the spike in passenger conflict, citing a two-week period that featured three flights diverted over passengers joining the Mile-High Fight Club. Apparently seat reclining is the primary cause of getting bloodied on a plane, narrowly edging out number two, “Flying United.”

They decided to test whether these battles could be solved with a little sweet, sweet cash. As with most things in life, the answer was yes.

But the interesting wrinkle was how wildly preferences shifted depending on who was giving and who was receiving in the private deal over reclining space. When the passenger is presumed to be able to recline barring a deal:

Recliners wanted on average $41 to refrain from reclining, while reclinees were willing to pay only $18 on average. Only about 21 percent of the time would ownership of the 4 inches change hands.

But when the roles were reversed:

Now, recliners were only willing to pay about $12 to recline while reclinees were unwilling to sell their knee room for less than $39. Recliners would have ended up purchasing the right to recline only about 28 percent of the time—the same right that they valued so highly in the other condition.

Wait… what? How is it possible that people’s valuation of reclining vs. not being reclined upon depended so completely on which party (recliner or reclinee) held initial ownership of the property right?

I can field that one: because people are assholes who favor ruining someone else’s experience for free far more than they’re willing to pay for it. And that’s pretty much the answer — though they dress it up in nice economic-theory talk because the “endowment effect” sounds much better than my theory.

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The analysis continues and works its way through figuring out if people having to initiate conversation hinders the likelihood of a deal (it does), if people are just resistant to exchanging cash with fellow passengers (they are), and if people’s sense of value fluctuates tremendously if they’re presented with a pre-determined price (absolutely). This is the most in-depth analysis of airline seating you’ll read this millennium.

Nobody likes the recent turn toward airlines charging for every service. But maybe what we need is more of that. Most airlines still hand out free drinks, and sometimes little bags of pretzels. Maybe instead they should charge for them and allow passengers to purchase them for one another. Everyone wins. Seat recline space is efficiently allocated. Airlines are marginally further from bankruptcy. And no one gets punched in the face.

Perhaps Buccafusco and Sprigman have managed to solve a perplexing conflict to provide peace and tranquility on future flights.

But they probably just gave Spirit Airlines a new way to screw people on fees.

How to Resolve Fights over Reclining Airplane Seats: Use Behavioral Economics [Evonomics]

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HeadshotJoe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.

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