[amalcon]

Those few degrees matter if your knees are already brushing the back of the seat in front of you. It matters how tall you are, how much of that is in your legs, how big your feet are (the more you need to bend your knees, the higher they will be), and it also varies depending on seat design and layout.

For others like me, one trick is to at most minimally use the under seat storage: small handbags only. No backpacks, briefcases, or anything else big enough to hold a laptop. Then, you can put your feet in that space. This lowers my knees by 1-2 inches depending on the plane, which really matters. It's the only thing that helps significantly, aside from paying for premium economy. Doesn't help with the claustrophobia, but there's not much to be done about that.

The other things I've tried (that don't reliably work) are leaning forward from the seat back (to pull my knees back) and slouching slightly (so that the inevitable recline compresses the seat back into my knees rather than bashing them). The former saves my knees, but sacrifices my back. The latter kind of helps during the flight, but walking will still hurt the next day.

[Ajedi32]

> one trick is to at most minimally use the under seat storage [...] Then, you can put your feet in that space

Oh, interesting. I've always done that, it never really occurred to me that others might not. Even if you have a bigger bag you can always take it out during the flight to make space for your feet. That, plus crossing my legs allows me to have my legs flat against the chair (and therefore my knees well below the level where the person in front reclining would make much difference).

[amalcon]

Well, it can be annoying to limit oneself to a smaller under-seat bag. Taking the bigger bag out during the flight uses up even more of the available space. I've generally got nowhere to put it except behind my legs (which cramps things a lot): on my lap doesn't work if I want to actually use anything in that bag.

It's easier to just pack my laptop (plus anything I might use during the flight) in my overhead bin carry-on. It's a real pain to actually get anything out of there, but a paperback book or ebook reader will fit in a coat pocket or small handbag -- and that's all I truly need on the plane. Plus, the airline won't be able to force you to check your overhead carry-on that way since the laptop has lithium batteries in it.