Dear Economist,

Your FT colleague Tyler Brule extols the virtues of business class-only airlines. But isn’t everything relative? Will I feel special if first class is standard class?

Dr Rupert Marshall, Gothenburg

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Dear Dr Marshall,

It is true that many people seem to have a utility function whose value is tied to the utility of others.

I like watching people laugh, am delighted when my wife is happy, and feel stressed if I see my colleagues under pressure.

Your happiness, too, seems to depend on the happiness of others, but in a curious way. You do not enjoy acres of space, vintage champagne or attentive service. You merely get a kick out of watching taller or heavier passengers trying to squeeze into tiny spaces and seeing the queues for the lavatory.

Given your sadistic streak, I am not sure what to advise. It might be much healthier if you were to compare yourself, not to fellow passengers in pain, but to your own circumstances when you were younger, or the situation your great-grandfather faced when he was a young man.

It is natural to view your own happiness in relation to some reference point, but that could easily be the uncomfortable backpacking you used to enjoy, or the steerage class passage across the Atlantic in a turn-of-the-century ocean liner.

Given your tendencies, at least you can easily save money: always travel in the most cramped and uncomfortable conditions available, and make sure other passengers are worse off than you are.

I suggest spilling hot tea on the lap of the lady next to you so you can bask in your relative comfort. Meanwhile I shall enjoy business class when I can get it, and will not be too upset to know that Tyler Brule is probably up in first.

Questions to: economist@ft.com