Flight Fright.

• Author: Bonham, Nicole
• Position: Fear of flying - Brief Article

Aviapliobia can Plague even the savviest business traveler.

It was a cabin in Alaska's panhandle where I awoke one July morning in 1996 to a radio report that TWA Flight 800 had plummeted from the skies off Long Inland. The Boeing 747 had suddenly burst into flames and disintegrated in a fiery rain of machinery and parts, seat cushions and various plastics, a litter of commercial and personal effects that covered the sea in a confetti of debris.

Later I would learn the doomed aircraft had carried my best friend from college and his fiancee. Even without personal loss, such senseless tragedy in the skies plagues the imagination of the savviest of travelers, living on in our collective minds long after the investigation is complete.

Business travelers are oftentimes forced to shelve such anxiety to maintain jobs in a global market increasingly linked by air travel, Few are willing to admit to or talk publicly about what they consider a personal failing, a shameful neurosis that manifests itself in tense and nervous clasped hands at takeoff; mindless chatter at landing; or even mid-flight moments of stiffened terror. After all, if you run a company and manage tens or hundreds of employees, it is immeasurably embarrassing that a common jet flight should attack your mind and body with pointless terror.

Bite the Bullet

"Corporate travelers pretty well know what will make them most comfortable and what they cant handle. They bite the bullet and get on planes -- but I also have those who absolutely have to take the train." Linda Hamilton is a senior corporate travel agent with Salt Lake-based Murdock Travel with nearly 22 years experience assisting travelers with their flight arrangements. Fear of flying is common, she says. In that arena, there are few secrets between a client and travel agent.

"Sometimes they're right up front with it," she says. "You learn they've got a reason for their fears and we just work with them." This may mean long layovers and inconvenient, segmented travel routes for folks who want to avoid particular airlines and aircraft. It may also mean very specific seat requests. "They usually depend on what the last plane crash was ... if the front of the plane survives everyone wants to sit up front," Hamilton says.

Fearful Flyers

Industry concern for the commercial impact of flight fear reached a milestone when the Boeing Company published a report 20 years ago that estimated one of every three adult Americans feels uneasy...