When air travel first became accessible to the public in the early 20th century, air travel was considered an extravagance; it was fabulous and exciting. Before this he had taken days to travel more than a couple of hundred miles, so travelers loved the speed and comfort it offered.
However, the positive attitude towards air travel has diminished and been replaced by nervousness due to rising prices, the discomfort of planes and, most importantly, increased security at airports.
For some, it is actually much worse. It is estimated that between 10 and 15% of people have experienced a phobia of flying. Symptoms of this serious dysfunction often include elevated heart rate, rapid breathing, excessive sweating, and migraines. The severity of these signs and symptoms can be further aggravated as a result of other anxieties, such as fear of crowds and fear of being trapped.
But the anguish doesn’t end after they get off the plane. Even if many years go by without taking a flight, there is a lingering risk that they may be forced to take a flight at some point in the future for work or, perhaps, some other unavoidable commitment.
Where does this fear come from? Don’t you know that flying is the safest method of travel on the planet? They obviously know. But no matter how many times flying phobia sufferers listen to the facts and statistics, it will have no effect. I only mention it now because it raises a fundamental question:
If flying is really so safe, why do some people have this affliction?
To answer this, we’ll need to take a closer look at the human brain, which is exquisitely adapted to respond to threats. Faced with the choice of a cliff or a hungry predator, your mind knows exactly how to make the distinction between the certainty of being eaten and the probability of survival.
The problem arises if the person has not learned to process the available details effectively. This was what happened during the immediate aftermath of the horrific events of September 11, 2001. The only readily available information came from the frantic media coverage and politicians trying to defend suspect policies.
The repercussions of a country plunged into panic ended up being catastrophic. The resulting national boycott of flight schedules across the country caused an approximate reduction of more than $80 billion for the US financial system. This number dwarfs the $25 billion of destruction that was directly inflicted on the USA on 9/11.
The decision of so many men and women not to take a flight is obviously completely understandable given the horrific scenes seen around the world. In truth, it is so easy to understand, it is quite surprising that some people kept flying. If you think about it, this is one of the largest scientific control groups that has ever been available. It turns out that his decision to continue flying was well thought out.
According to Cornell University researchers, in the 3 months immediately following the terrorist attacks, there was an increase of 725 deaths on US highways over the corresponding period 12 months earlier. This is because many more people traveled by car instead of using a plane. An additional study by the Michigan Transportation Research Institute estimates the number to be even higher: 1,018 additional road deaths compared to figures from previous years.
And it didn’t end there; the impact lasted practically two years before returning to normal. During the year following the terrorist attacks, there were approximately 2,500 additional road deaths that would not have occurred if people had continued to fly. More important…
There was not a single death as a result of a commercial flight in the US during this period.
Concern about the risk of terrorism associated with air travel was misplaced. Air travel was actually less risky than travelers thought; and considerably safer when traveling by car. In hindsight, no one was made safer by not flying, and for some, tragically, the decision to drive was fatal.
So why did the people who continued to fly choose to do so? It’s actually simple. The key is how they calculated the risk from the available information, and the result was a much more accurate assessment of the threat. So when they thought about air travel in the future, it seemed like an uneventful experience.
This is what I mean. If you think about something, there is a very different neurological structure and sequence that your brain needs to use if you are going to feel fear. And if the sequence and structure it uses is different, you will feel it differently. So while they were initially just as grossed out as everyone else by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, they didn’t allow the media and politicians to “hypnotize” them with the “disaster movie” prophecy of the coming months and years.
They realized that just because the attacks happened, there was no evidence that they would continue to happen in the future. If anything, the chances of it happening again were even slimmer. So when they thought about flying in the future, it seemed like a pretty ordinary, even boring experience.
The lesson to learn is clear. It’s simply not enough to try to educate fearful travelers that air travel is safe. It’s also foolish (as well as pointless) to expect them to “face their fears.” The inclination of politicians, and also of the media, to exaggerate the problems is not going to change. Instead, we need to teach people how to use their brains to process information in the same way as people who continued to travel by plane.
The real key is to help them learn techniques to modify the neurological structure and process that the brain must use to experience fear and worry. Then the phobia will collapse; and collapse quickly.
