Fear of Flying and Flight Attendant TLC

By Diane Owens • June 13th, 2009
Photo taken by myself
Image via Wikipedia

We always tell fearful flyers to admit their fear of flying to the flight attendants when they’re first boarding.  Even though flight attendants have a lot to do on a flight, the majority of them will be compassionate about your fear of flying and give you a little extra TLC.

Yahoo travel has a great article written by an anonymous flight attendant on “Seven Ways to Annoy a Flight Attendant.”  Carry-on complaints were big:  carrying on luggage you can’t lift and ignoring the flight attendant’s request to put your stuff underneath the seat in front of you.  Obviously, flight attendants aren’t weight lifters. Their prime responsibility is passenger safety.

Not one of the seven tips has to do with fear of flying.  Flight attendants can and will help you with your heavy fear of flying baggage that you’ll be carrying onto the flight.  Try saying something like this the next time you fly: “Just wanted you to know that I’m a fearful flyer, so I’d appreciate any extra attention during the flight.”

This FYI announcement is helpful for both you and the flight attendant.  Many fearful flyers are afraid of “freaking out” during the flight and making a scene that would require the attention of the flight crew.  By making your fear of flying known up front, it will help them to help you.  Really.

Try it on your next flight and then let us know what happens.

About the Author:  Diane Owens has been helping people overcome their fear of flying since 2005.  She writes about fear of flying for Fearless Flight.com and assists Capt. Ron Nielsen in spreading the message that flying is the safest way to travel on the planet.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Related posts:

  1. Turbulent Flight Causes Injuries
  2. Miracle on the Hudson Flight and Fear of Flying
Comments(3) Overcoming Fear of Flying, Travel tips

Comments

By sandito on February 24th, 2010 at 9:16 pm

I recently flew from British Columbia, Canada to Dublin, Ireland (return). I mentioned my fear of flying to flight attendants on a couple of the connecting flights (including Air Canada overseas flight) and the flight attendants looked at me with disdain and a forced nod – no TLC or compassion offered – their reactions made me even more uncomfortable and uneasy.

i have a friend who’s cousin is a flight attendant with Air Canada (doing International flights) – when I started to tell her about this reaction I got from her fellow flight attendants, she stopped me in my tracks and said it is flyers like me that drive them crazy and asked me why I bother flying.

By Capt Ron on February 24th, 2010 at 10:42 pm

First of all, I’m sorry you had that experience but not shocked. And your cousin–you’re 0 for 2. In baseball, that’s a bad day!

I don’t mean to make light of it. I’ve flown with thousands of flight attendants. Some are fantastic, some are great, some are average and others take the heart out of me. I can’t explain what was that particular flight attendant’s story because I wasn’t there. Often, flight attendants don’t know what to say or do when confronted with fear of flying. Too bad, because they often find themselves in similar circumstances during turbulence, etc., and that is, they aren’t in control and become fearful as well. Don’t give up and should you fly again, keep identifying yourself as a fearful flyer and ask for help.

In the meantime, what are you doing to overcome your fear? If you have any questions that I might answer, please ask them here or contact me privately through service@fearlessflight.com.

Capt Ron

By Debbie McLaren on March 13th, 2010 at 6:57 am

Dear Capt Ron,

Having flown for over 35 years since having my son 11 years ago it has become progressively worse. I have tried to keep flying thinking something in my brain will revert back to when I absolutely loved flying. Always at the end of my holiday I recall saying sadly holiday over but no I’ve still got the flight to go. I just loved that part. Now even reading your “Another Routine Day” made me run to the toilet just like being on a flight.

I have thought for a long time now why dont they let us see the capt’s, etc etc face on screen for reassurance? When going through turbulence I image both capt and co hanging onto the flight stick trying to keep hold of this monster. Sounds really silly I know but it is what I feel.

I have tried everything from expensive hypnothery, tapes, flying first class and I have just finished cognitive therapy. When we flew first class and the captain came to talk to me I was made a little fun off as the stewardess had aksed the captain to stop going through turbulence as Mrs McLaren was frightened and both laughed and said I had nothing to worry about even though I had spent the last near two hours with my head between my knees. What a waste of money.

My gut instinct is telling me that turbulence is not as straight forward as it is being made out to be. I feel when a plane hits turbulence it is a hit and a miss. Ok you would hope to have a capt’s thousand of hours flying time but there is something not fitting with this. Capt’s dont know how bad or how long it is going to take to get out of it. I just cannot seem to believe that capts and their crew get into their planes as I would get into my car and drive.

I have just returned from Marbella and am due to travel to Florida in 13 days 10 hours time and have already started the nightmares, panic, checking my will and everything is in order.

As a person I confront everything head on. If I’m scared I confront it and deal with it. I even thought that if I got frightened enough I would reach the point where I would think well so what if does go down it would be over very quickly but I just can’t get to that point in my mind. I think if this thing falls out the sky it’ll take a few minites of sheer terro and our son will be absolutely terrified before it either explodes or hits the ground.

This is absolute horrendous. I am really struggling with this. Having just checked through all the flight disasters and whose company is the safest having the least number of crashes. But I have to say that isn’t helping anymore as the flight is approaching.

Any thoughts you can give me would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Debbie McLaren

 

Leave a Comment

« | Home | »