How to overcome your fear of flying as flight anxiety runs high

While aeroplane cockpits may be more hi-tech than ever and commercial flying is safer than ever, the fear of flying remains a stubborn hurdle for many.

Commercial flying is statistically the safest mode of transport by far and it has become steadily safer each decade since the 1960s, according to research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yet as many as 40 per cent of people in developed countries grapple with some form of aviophobia – a clinical anxiety that turns a flight into a psychological battle.

In a survey of nearly 2,000 US air travellers this month by travel website The Points Guy, 46 per cent admitted they had experienced an increase in anxiety in light of recent airline safety incidents, with 8 per cent delaying or cancelling plans due to their fear.

Katie Forster, the founder of a Hong Kong-based communications agency, is among those who dread flying. With an international client list, she flies about once a month, often long haul to the United States. But she has never let her fear prevent her from flying; instead, she has found methods to cope.

Forster does not recall ever being scared of flying as a child. Her fear was triggered in her twenties after a flight she was on from Hong Kong to Bangkok encountered severe turbulence, sending her anxiety into overdrive.

“I remember looking out of the window at clear blue skies and thinking, ‘This isn’t so bad,’” she recalls. Then the plane dropped.

“The plunge probably only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like forever. The captain made an announcement … saying that ‘a slow and heavy aircraft’ had passed through the area only a few minutes earlier and we’d experienced something called ‘clear air turbulence’.”