Should You Recline Your Airplane Seat?
Are you a recliner or a refrainer? Like many culture-war issues, this divide has material causes. Since the nineteen-seventies, legroom in the typical economy seat has decreased by anywhere from two to five inches. Adults, on average, have gotten larger, which makes being in an airline seat even less comfortable. Rising checked-luggage fees have likely led more people to stuff their bags under the seat in front of them, further reducing legroom. And the spread of the laptop computer has changed the spatial dynamics of the tray table, making the real estate directly above it especially valuable.
It’s easy to assume that the airlines have deprived us of space out of pure greed. But the economics of air travel suggest otherwise. It’s true that, in the nineteen-sixties and seventies, seats had more legroom—but, back then, air-cabin designs were more heavily regulated, and tickets were more expensive and had to be booked through travel agents. Today, we buy flights ourselves, and budget-conscious flyers are empowered to pursue low prices relentlessly. Airlines cater to them by selling small, cheap seats, offering legroom as an add-on to those willing to pay for it.
Nobody likes to be trapped or pushed around. On the plane, you’re hemmed in by the choices of your fellow-passengers; by the physical constraints of your environment; and by the economic considerations that have funnelled you into your particular seat on the plane. You’re primed to rebel. The question is whether you’ll do so by claiming more space, or by defending what you have.
If you’re sitting in an empty subway car, you might put your bag on the seat next to you; later, when the car fills up, you know to remove it so that someone can occupy its spot. This uncontroversial social norm reflects how we work together to share public space. One might argue that the same principle is at work on an airplane. According to this theory, leaning back is like putting your bag on a seat: it deprives your neighbor of space. Yet the analogy isn’t perfect. When you recline, you’re not preventing someone from occupying space—you’re intruding on space they already occupy, an act with an entirely different vibe. (On the subway, this would be like shifting your bag partly onto your neighbor’s lap.) The “victim” of your reclination, meanwhile, can easily claim some compensatory space by using their own recline button. (This would be like your subway neighbor passing your bag to the person next to them.)
This latter, chain-reaction aspect of seat reclining makes it even more fraught. If you sit in first class, you can recline without inconveniencing anyone. (From this perspective, part of what you’re paying for is a sense of moral peace.) But, for everyone else, exercising the choice to recline forces the person behind them to make a similar choice. Arguably, a heavy moral weight burdens the person in the bulkhead seat, since if they lean back, they risk initiating a cascade of reactions. Picture this cascade in your mind’s eye—what does it look like? According to Jones’s survey data, roughly half of fliers find reclining so reprehensible that they simply won’t do it; another third believe it to be rude but will still sometimes recline; and the remainder find nothing wrong with reclining. Psychologists talk about “social licensing” (if you see someone doing something forbidden, you’re more likely to do it), and ethicists ponder the principle of proportionality (the larger your injury, the larger your response, and vice versa). So we might imagine pulses of recline propagating rearward from unrepentant recliners. If Alice reclines all the way, Bob might initiate a three-quarters recline, followed by Carla, who reclines only halfway, until Dan stops the pulse by refusing to recline on principle. He enables the uprightness of Enid and Frank, until Geoff decides to exercise his reclinatory rights, initiating a new pulse.
Everything would be simpler if passengers made a unanimous decision: recline, or not. Accordingly, some airlines have built cabins in which all the seats are “pre-reclined” to the same degree. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a uniformly ideal degree of recline. It’s not just that individuals differ in their preferences (which they do). Ergonomics research has shown that, when people are focussing on a task (working, watching TV, eating), they tend to prefer a slight recline; when they are trying to rest, they recline further. And the most important determinant of comfort may be movement: physiotherapists often say that “the best posture is the next posture.” (Sometimes, you just need to lean back for a minute.) This suggests that creating no-recline cabins offers a simple trade-off: social harmony comes at the cost of comfort.
