- Passenger next to you spills over into your space
- Passenger in front of you reclines seat
- Player is taller than average or inconveniently sized
- Passenger in front of you reclines seat
- Player is taller than average or inconveniently sized
To this day, I fail to understand why airplane seats recline at all, much less as far as some of them do.
On my last Delta (international) flight, the person in front of me managed to recline so far back that her hair was directly in my line of sight. She wouldn't even put up the seat for when meals were served and then she got mad at me for "breathing in" her hair.
At least I got quite lucky and the seat next to me was vacant so I could use the tray table behind the other seat whose occupant didn't recline once the whole flight.
But yes, airplane seats reclining always seemed to be some kind of holdover from the days when there was plenty of room between rows. It probably should have been done away with at some point, but likely was never quite worth changing.
Hopefully I have another empty seat next to me on my return flight. That would be amazing.