AVIATION FEAR OF FLYING DESTINATIONS BRITISH
AIRWAYS’ TOP TIPS
When you feel anxious, hold your breath, then take a long deep breath in and a long deep one out. Combine this with a muscle contraction – clenching the
buttocks is most effective.
Split a long flight up into half-hour sections. Go with a list of things to do – write a letter, watch a film,
read a book or eat a meal.
The wings enable aircraft to fly, not the engines. A commercial aircraft flying
at 30,000ft can glide for 100 miles, even if all the engines
fail. Turbulence may be
uncomfortable, but it’s not dangerous.
Visualise yourself
stepping off the aircraft into the arms of loved ones, into a
warm climate or into a successful business meeting.
Source: flyingwith
confidence.com
ABOVE: Course founder Steve Allright
LEFT: Eleanor’s view of southern England
noises we might hear on board. It turns out a beep from the back of the plane doesn’t mean imminent disaster, just that the cabin crew have run out of milk. When a member of cabin crew is speaking into the onboard phone, it doesn’t mean something has gone catastrophically wrong with the engines, but most likely that the pilots fancy a cup of tea. “Unless you’re told something is abnormal, just assume everything is fine on the flight,” Richard reassures us. We’re told there is a contingency plan in place for every scenario, and the pilots respond to any possible catastrophe we can think of with a confident “we’ve trained for that”. I now know so much about how a plane flies, I could happily reassure other nervous passengers. I’ve also discovered a lot about just
how much training pilots have to go through to gain and maintain their licence, spending hours in a simulator practising for any disaster that could occur. “We’re tested every six months, and if we don’t pass, then we simply do not fly,” says Gordon.
QUESTION AND ANSWER During breaks, we speak one-on-one with the pilots, cabin crew and air-traffic controllers, all of whom are more than happy to answer any questions we might have. This proves to be one of the most
valuable parts of the day for me, as I can ask the experts about every fear I’ve ever had – and no one will tell me I’m being ridiculous.
A beep from the back of the plane doesn’t mean imminent disaster, just that the cabin crew have run out of milk
Jai Dillon, a young first officer who will later fly us over the English Channel and back, approaches me at lunch and asks if there’s anything I want to ask him. Now is my chance to put my biggest
fear to rest. “Is there anything at all that can make a plane drop out of the sky?” I ask. I’m relieved to be told that there
isn’t anything that could cause that to happen, and spend the rest of the time speaking to others on the course, who I’m surprised to find have many of the same worries that I do.
CHANGING MINDS Our afternoon session is led by psychologist Dr Keith Stoll, who has an in-depth understanding of the anxieties and phobias associated with flying. He reassures us that anxiety is nothing to be embarrassed about – it’s a natural instinct designed to keep us alive – and rather than focusing on curing our anxieties completely, he concentrates on changing the way in which we think about flying and learning to deal with our feelings. We are taught to recognise negative thoughts and interrupt them before they can take control. “One of the most effective things you can do to reduce your anxious feelings is to breathe and squeeze,” says Dr Keith. And so 100 nervous flyers in the
auditorium of Heathrow’s Sofitel simultaneously clench and release their buttocks, while taking deep breaths. It’s not the Saturday afternoon I’d envisaged, but I can feel my anxieties, which had already begun forming before the impending afternoon flight, melting away. Just before we make our way
to Heathrow’s Terminal 2 for our round-trip flight, Dr Keith leads us in a group relaxation exercise. As we close our eyes, he talks us through what will happen when we leave the auditorium, from going through security to taking our seats on the plane.
15 November 2018
travelweekly.co.uk65
PICTURE: NICK MORRISH/BRITISH AIRWAYS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96
