Notes of a frequently fearful flyer, who loves to fly

By Edward Nilges

I love to fly for business and for pleasure. I am also a fearful flyer.

I started to fly frequently on business in 1981, because the Midwest did not have enough jobs for software developers. I was terrified because I'd witnessed, first-hand but at a distance, the crash of a DC-10 on takeoff from O'Hare in 1979, and because I was working for a firm which did not seem to care much about me. I was also in the middle of a divorce in which I lost custody of my children and I think my fear had to do with leaving them on the ground: I remember I even bought one of those Mutual of Omaha policies, and my ex-wife was sort of moved when she received the notice in the mail that IF my flight to California had crashed she would have cleaned-up (she was not moved enough to get back together.)

I initially tried booze: bad idea, needless to say. I was also a smoker but even as a smoker I was terribly uncomfortable, in the early 1980s on board airliners which allowed smoking. The air is much clearer now.

Working with a competent therapist I learned that I could change the physical response by stopping smoking and by obeying the two laws of business travel: don't drink, and don't check your bags. The latter, more generally, means that some fear of flying is caused by my poor planning for the flight.

Nowadays I treat flying like the pilot treats HIS job, as a Type A, compulsive workaholic. I have never found the advice to relax to be of any use at all. Instead, I treat my role as a passenger proactively. When they tell me to buckle up, by God, I am buckled up; when they tell me to place the tray table in an upright, locked position, it's there.

I treat the safety information with seriousness. Although ANY crash is extremely unlikely, there was a crash in 1986 in Sioux City Iowa in which many people survived because of extreme pilot professionalism, and because of good emergency response. I therefore simply measure the distance between my own seat and the nearest exit in terms of the count of seats so that in an emergency I could find the exit.

I don't, however, do anything special like get an aisle seat. This is because the part of me that loves flying wants a window seat, and the part of me that fears flying wants to supervise the crew.

More importantly, I realize that irrational physical manifestations on my part could upset other flyers and that therefore I have a responsibility to act like Smiling' Jack in a macho fashion, and to not show my own anxiety.

As a parent of small children several years ago, I had to take my little fellows to my home in California and I was still at the stage of complete fear. I was even more organized and military with the kids, checking off things by the numbers and addressing them as "men" (as in, "men, we will now proceed to baggage claim, you on the left and you on the right, march hop two three.") I also brought lots of books on the flight and read them aloud to the kids, taking away the focus from my fear and me.

As we turned for final approach into SFO over the beautiful, miraculous Bay, my older son said, with the solemnity of the child, "looks like we're gonna go splash." He wasn't scared: for him it was exciting. I gave a silent moan of terror and attended to making sure that they were properly buckled in, being the macho guy we're not supposed to be. I now believe that in a sense we should be macho guys, while at the same time and in the right place acknowledging that we're not in control.

When I was a kid, I was a big reader. My public library had old Reader's Digests from WWII and these had articles for ordinary soldiers about being what was then known as "nervous in the service." Even at that distant era, the authors knew that it was useless to pretend that you were John Wayne, and even then they advised the soldier to acknowledge his fear, to move on, and do his hard duty. The country had agreed upon a goal and nearly all draftees did so too. This is a sort of sophisticated macho thinking which I found useful, flying my kids: we have after all a very important goal, and that is spending time together, and if it looks like we're gonna go splash, then so be it.

To this day, it helps to act as if I was a macho guy, and to mimic in my imagination the careful, military style procedures in place at the airline. Like the pilot, I print out a check-off list of things I need to pack and I get to the airport at least an hour in advance of the flight. I carry work and a non-work related book so the flight represents a valuable opportunity (when I am rested) to get work done and (when I am not rested) to relax.

When I have mileage plus points I fly first class. I pass up the free booze, of course, but as a large guy the simplest feature of First is its best, for me: the seat. I find it truly relaxing to have legroom and also a nice, attentive flight attendant. They are nice in Coach, too, of course, but first is really special.

Fly home | Back to the In-flight Stories | Corrections