Purpose: Airline cost-cutting measures have led to shrinking economy-class seats ever since deregulation went into effect 35 years ago. Deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism, along with restricted mobility, particularly during an emergency evacuation, are among the health and safety hazards seat shrinkage has created for passengers. These have led to several regulatory attempts to define and standardize minimum aircraft seat dimensions. The question for scholarly investigation is whether government can efficiently regulate how air travelers value their health, safety, and comfort (and what consequences might arise therefrom).Methods: Aircraft seat regulation is modeled as a Stag Hunt with two sets of utility-maximizing and interactive players: passengers and airlines. The strategic choices available to each one are identified and tested in the context of a single-play game.Main findings: We find two likely outcomes of passenger and airline risk calculations and mitigation strategies against a set of alternatives and their expected consequences. The tension between the payoff-dominant and risk-dominant equilibria arises when players rationally pursue either strategy, depending on what they expect the other will do. Despite the lower payoffs to either player, we predict that the second-best and risk-dominant strategy will result from players' risk calculations. Successful lobbying against airline seat regulation derives not so much from the vast resources and efforts committed to it, but from the demonstrable power of market forces to sustain it.Conclusion/value: Absent any optimal strategy to address corresponding price increases, regulatory efficacy will depend on the risk propensities of market forces. Aircraft seat pricing reflects consumer supply and demand information pertaining to it. Any information changes will be instantly reflected in the market price of aircraft seats. Game simulation thus offers empirically verifiable predictions about choices that affect the control of scarce resources, particularly when passengers and airlines compete over them under conditions of risk and uncertainty.