Coase Theorem, illustrated

Don’t Want Me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me
By Josh Barro

I fly a lot. When I fly, I recline. I don’t feel guilty about it. And I’m going to keep doing it, unless you pay me to stop. 

I bring this up because of a dispute you may have heard about: On Sunday, a United Airlines flight from Newark to Denver made an unscheduled stop in Chicago to discharge two passengers who had a dispute over seat reclining. According to The Associated Press, a man in a middle seat installed the Knee Defender, a $21.95 device that keeps a seat upright, on the seatback in front of him. 

A flight attendant asked him to remove the device. He refused. The woman seated in front of him turned around and threw water at him. The pilot landed the plane and
booted both passengers off the flight.

Obviously, it’s improper to throw water at another passenger on a flight, even if he deserves it. But I’ve seen a distressing amount of sympathy for Mr. Knee Defender, who wasn’t just instigating a fight but usurping his fellow passenger’s property rights. When you buy an airline ticket, one of the things you’re buying is the right to use your seat’s reclining function. If this passenger so badly wanted the passenger in front of him not to recline, he should have paid her to give up that right.