De-reclining seats, improving etiquette

Ready to fly off for your well-deserved New Year vacation, you'll relate to this. Reclining seats on airlines offer gains in comfort for the few cms they tilt. They also have a negative externality on the passenger seated immediately behind and constitute a form of market failure. Such situations are typically dealt with by pricing (the person reclining pays more), or by regulation (where aircraft makers stop offering the feature). Either of the two options is extreme, and airlines take on the job of improving passenger etiquette to widen consumer choice. They do have some flexibility over customising aircraft seating based on the size of passengers they transport and the distances they fly. Reclining seats are heavier than upright ones, and have an effect on fuel and maintenance costs. Budget airlines in various parts of the world are moving towards upright seating, which when combined with shrinking legroom, deteriorates the flying experience considerably.

But there are limits to how far personal space can be squeezed. Over distances up to 200 km, door-to-door travel by road can be quicker and comfortable. Trains are approaching top velocities at almost half of aircraft cruising speeds. Airlines flying on domestic routes in densely populated countries compete with terrestrial transport for a large part of their networks. And these alternative modes of travel are making bigger strides in the travel experience. Aviation service offerings cater to their competitive advantage over longer distances, which makes reclining seats a standard feature for the industry. Consumer choice is protected by what is available on land as well as in air. Soft power of passenger etiquette has worked by and large. It can be put to further use on the rising number of flyers so long as airlines don't go overboard in shrinking personal space.

Consumer behaviour is easier to shape with standardised services. Removing reclining seats with a bit more legroom in economy travel makes sense. But that won't guarantee passengers being less loud or loutish.