{"id":156216,"date":"2016-06-10T14:06:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T13:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/turkeyalwan.net\/?p=156216"},"modified":"2017-08-03T17:08:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-03T16:08:17","slug":"travel-tips-to-overcome-your-fear-of-flying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/turkeyalwan.net\/travel-tips-to-overcome-your-fear-of-flying\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel tips to overcome your fear of flying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday\u00a0newsletters<\/a>\u00a0always feature luxury travel\u00a0contests<\/a>,\u00a0tips<\/a>,\u00a0series<\/a>, or\u00a0news<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today (June 10, 2016): travel tip: How to overcome a fear of flying?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

This may come as a (minor) shock to most of you – since I\u00a0publish\u00a0a lot of flight trip reports<\/a> on this blog and since I am\u00a0one of the most popular Youtubers<\/a>\u00a0posting flight clips – 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\u00a025% of people have at least some fear of flying, while about 1 in 10 people have a 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, overnight 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\u00a0freakingly abrupt plane movements (it did feel like sudden drops of several tens of feet), the crackling and never-heard-before sounds of the aircraft’s interior, the brief interruptions of the inflight entertainment program, the frequently\u00a0changing tones of the aircraft’s engines duing the event, and the terrifying looks in everyone’s eyes. It was horrible, absolutely horrible. It lasted for only 20\u00a0minutes, 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’s movement); I don’t 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. The recent midflight disasters with state-of-the-art planes of highly respected airlines such as Air France<\/a>, Malaysian Airlines<\/a>, Air Asia<\/a>, and Egypt Air<\/a> have not helped either. What makes it difficult to cope with my fear of flying, is that my anxiety is very unpredictable, sometimes it’s there and sometimes it isn’t. Over the years, I noticed though that it mostly happens on overwater flights when the plane is cruising\u00a0hours 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\u00a0wrong)\u00a0than with flying itself.<\/p>\n

\"FEAR<\/a><\/p>\n

It has been said many times\u00a0before:\u00a0you\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\u00a0reassuring knowledge has not really helped calming my nerves (since I am still not in control of the plane). I have read tons of tips on the internet to\u00a0help alleviate my fear, but I found none of them to be very efficient. Nevertheless, I did succeed in overcoming my fear of\u00a0flying\u00a0to some degree by applying my own, not always very conventional strategies to cope with the process of flying, and today, I want to share them with you.<\/p>\n

If you have any tips to conquer your fear of flying, please share them in the comments<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/p>\n