Two Economists Tackle The Airplane Dilemma--To Recline Or Not To Recline

SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - Since the battle over airplane legroom increasingly brings passengers to blows, two economists decided to see whether their discipline could put a dollar figure on how much travelers cherish the right to recline.

A survey found 91 percent of flyers want the airlines to do away with reclining seats altogether. But research by Christopher Buccafusco at the Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago-Kent College of Law and Chris Sprigman at the New York University School of Law suggests all it might take would be a cocktail to induce a truce in the battle of the kneecaps.

"People don't seem to be willing to pay for something that they're willing to punch each other over," said Sprigman.

Sprigman and Buccafusco's online survey presented two scenarios. One assumes the person in front is entitled to recline, while the other assumes the person in front must pay extra or leave the seatback in its upright position. In either scenario, people placed a higher value on the space already paid for by the price of the plane ticket.

"When the rule was that they could recline their seat, they wanted a lot of money, about forty bucks not to," Sprigman explained.

"The people behind them were willing to pay a fraction of that. Whereas if you switch the rule and you gave the person in back the right not to have the seat recline, the people in front were only willing to pay a little bit to recline and the people in back wanted a lot, basically, to not be reclined upon.

"So preferences switched with the rule."

The survey reveals that money is a poor measure of which passenger gets the most utility and efficiency from the additional four inches that comes with being able to recline an airplane seat.

But when food and beverage are involved, the economists found, passengers become more tractable. Both sides were far more amenable to gifts than to cold hard cash.

Sprigman said the magic words appear to be, "Can I buy you a drink not to recline?" or "Can I buy you a snack not to recline?"

"You're more likely to get a transaction in that instance," he said. "This may be because people don't like making every human interaction into a money transaction."

Buccafusco also noted that actually having to ask may be a barrier, but doubts the airlines have the resources or incentive to develop a more impersonal solution such as an app that would allow passengers to barter the seat.

"It would be the easiest way to get to a pretty friction-free, efficient exchange of airline reclining," Buccafusco said.

Until there's app for that, they suggest starting with a drink.