This flying phobia may have occurred from concerns about the weather, inappropriate behaviour from other passengers, running out of fuel, turbulence, take offs, flying over water, claustrophobia, crowds, losing control (panic attacks), terrorists, hijackings to name but a few. News coverage, either in print or on the television, can also cause the general public to become very wary of flying and are reluctant to put their safety into the hands of a pilot.
People cancel their honeymoon plans , refuse promotion at work, turn down the opportunity of a “free holiday” or family visits simply because they will not board an aircraft. Unfortunately, for most people, air travel has become a necessary part of the travel experience these days, and more and more people are now seeking help to overcome their fear of flying.
The fear of flying is called aviophobia or aerophobia and is one of the most common fears, and yet according to insurance brokers ‘flying is 25 times safer than driving a car’. With over 100,000 international flights taking off and landing each day people still have the fear of being out of control as a passenger on a plane.
It has been calculated that over a million passengers are in the air at any one time !
“Air travel is the safest mode of mass transportation. According to Dr. Arnold Barnett of MIT, based on the air accident rate over the last few years, you would have to fly on average once a day every day for 22,000 years before you would encounter a commercial aviation incident.”
Since I first wrote the above statistics over 6 years ago it has now changed to once a day every day for 123,000 years. That’s how much aircraft reliability has improved in such a short space of time !
So the TRUE aviation danger is your drive to the local airport.
According to statistics, you are much more at risk on that drive than on your flight!
