{"id":282163,"date":"2023-05-12T14:39:41","date_gmt":"2023-05-12T13:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/turkeyalwan.net\/?p=282163"},"modified":"2023-06-16T14:23:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-16T13:23:57","slug":"tips-to-overcome-fear-of-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/turkeyalwan.net\/2023\/05\/12\/tips-to-overcome-fear-of-flying\/","title":{"rendered":"Tips to overcome a fear of flying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday\u00a0newsletters<\/a> always feature luxury travel contests,<\/a>\u00a0tips<\/a>, series<\/a>, or\u00a0news<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today: Tips to overcome a fear of flying<\/strong><\/h5>\n

This may come as a (minor) shock to some of you \u2013 since I publish a lot of flight trip reports<\/a> on this blog and since my YouTube flight videos<\/a> are very popular – but I am terrified of flying (despite having an absolute fascination for the airline industry and being a frequent flyer). And apparently, I am not alone since it is reported that 25% of people have some fear of flying, while about 1 in 10 people have a real phobia of flying.<\/p>\n

While it was not a problem for most of my life, it all changed when I was in my younger thirties and took a transatlantic red-eye flight on Continental Airlines (now United) from Newark to Brussels on a stormy April night. Mid-flight, the Boeing 767-400ER encountered some severe turbulence. I still remember the screams of other passengers (including flight attendants strapped in their seats behind me), the freakingly abrupt plane movements (it did feel like sudden drops of several tens of feet), the crackling and never-heard-before sounds of the aircraft\u2019s interior, the brief interruptions of the inflight entertainment program, the frequently changing tones of the aircraft\u2019s engines during the event, and the terrifying looks in everyone\u2019s eyes. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. It lasted for only 20 minutes, but it felt like hours, and it completely changed the way I feel on a plane.<\/p>\n

Since that event, I am one of those guys on the plane that behaves apparently unremarkable on the outside, but is quietly dying on the inside. I uneasily move around in my tight seat every time the planes makes a turn (as if I want to counteract the plane\u2019s movement); I don\u2019t have any appetite during the flight despite being served quite often delicious food in Business or First Class; I think of the most unlikely, worst case scenarios when the captain turns on the fasten seatbelt sign; and I make a prayer before takeoff even if I consider myself to be non-religious. What makes it particularly difficult to cope with my fear of flying, is that my anxiety is very unpredictable, sometimes it\u2019s there and sometimes it isn\u2019t. Over the years, I noticed though that it mostly happens on overwater flights when the plane is cruising hours away from the nearest diversion airport and the civilized world. Apparently, my fear of flying is more related to being at an uncomfortable distance from land (especially in the unlikely case that something would go wrong) than with flying itself.<\/p>\n

\"fear<\/p>\n

It has been said many times before: you\u2019re more likely to die in a car accident on the way to the airport than on the plane. While it is certainly true, this reassuring knowledge has not really helped calming my nerves (since I am still not in control of the plane). I\u2019ve read tons of tips on the internet to help alleviate my fear, but I found none of them to be very efficient. Nevertheless, I did succeed in overcoming my fear of flying to some degree by applying my own, not always very conventional strategies to cope with the process of flying, and in this article, I want to share them with you. <\/p>\n

If you have any other tip(s) on how to deal with a fear of flying, please leave a comment<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n