Any cabin crew or pilots on hear happy to answer questions to calm a nervous flyer?

[Monr0e]

We are flying to Croatia on Sunday, and I’m really, really nervous about it. Ive always been scared of flying but my last flight was really bad—there was a lot of turbulence, and I actually got injured during a sudden drop while I was in the aircraft toilet. So if I was anxious before, I'm terrified now.

I was wondering if there are any flight attendants or pilots (or regular flyers even) willing to answer a few questions to help calm me down 🙂

How long have you been flying for and what do you enjoy about the job? How often a week or month do you fly?

Do you ever get nervous? What about when you hear of crashes elsewhere such as the air India one?

Do you have any tips for a nervous flyer? Please!

The flight where I felt most relaxed was a flight to Belfast in the back row with cabin crew sat behind me, casually discussing their rotas and where else they were off to that week. It really helped to normalise it and remind people actually choose to fly as a job.
Thank you

On here, here! Not hear!
It won't let me edit the title

I'm a retired (Longhaul) pilot so possibly not great at the feels side of these questions but I think your comment about overhearing crew chatting about rosters, etc etc has value.

To many people flying is seen as a great,.almost daring adventure but when you're flying multiple times a day (short haul) or month (Long Haul) then it does become routine.... the aircraft is your office and you're at work doing your job....you just have to not get too laid back about it.

As far as:

"Do you ever get nervous?" I didn't..

"What about when you hear of crashes elsewhere such as the air India one?"

Personally a mixture of sadness but also you are usually aware enough of the statistics to think in a way "well that was unlucky, but very very unlikely to happen to me - though if you're smart you read the accident/incident reports to learn from.other peoples' mistakes if there were any.

It also helps with the confidence that you know you're very well trained, checked/rechecked and tested on a regular basis, and that that applies to all the people you work with so you can have confidence in the team.

I don't understand fear of flying. It's the safest mode of transport there is. Presumably you ride in cars or on public transport op?

Your lifetime odds of dying in a car are about 1 in 5,000 compared to 1 in 11 million for flying.

There are a couple of great posters in instagram for addressing flying fears and especially turbulence. Flyingwingwoman and @flyingsimon

Flying_simon

I used to get very nervous on planes. This was largely because I couldn’t quite beleive they worked.

personally I’d recommend headphones and a good book as you can then pretend you are on a train,

my fear of flying lately got fixed when my ExH decided to learn to fly and I went up with him a few times and although I’m told by the people who know he’s quite a safe pilot small planes are frankly more scary than big ones and after the landing where he skidded down half the bloody runway the big planes felt safe by comparison as at least he wasn’t flying the buggers.

Fear of flying isn’t logical, but it’s very real. People can tell you it’s the safest form of transport, but being thousands of feet in the air feels very different to being on the ground.

I agree that headphones, a good book, a film, a game are all good distraction techniques. I understand that turbulence, whilst feeling very scary, isn’t really an issue.

Focus on the holiday when you’re there OP, take plenty of things to distract you and have a wonderful holiday.

Not a pilot but I live near an airport and see captains and cabin crew on their way to work all the time. I’m not particularly afraid of flying but do have wobbles from time to time. It helps to remind myself that people fly for work and it’s a totally normal thing for them. They don’t go to work every day wondering if they’re going to come home.

Bach rescue remedy could help

I used to be scared of flying. Happened unexpectedly at about 26/27 - no real reason for it but apparently it’s quite common. You’re probably also more likely to be a bit of a control freak like me 😂
I did everything such as virgin fear of flying courses, diazepam and a couple of glasses of wine, hypnosis etc. All of them were helpful in their own way.
Ultimately, it was exposure therapy and reminding myself that my brain was overreacting to stimuli, the danger my brain was anticipating just wasn’t there but I know being on a turbulent flight is not pleasant and hard to think that in the moment.
You’re doing the right thing by persevering, keep getting on the plane as much as you can, weekend here, couple of days there. It’ll fade and become less of an event.

Thank you so much everyone

I don't think I'll ever not be nervous but it really helps to hear tips and tricks from others.

And also those who fly frequently, especially @notimagain. Hearing from a pilot who chose to do it all the time helps to see it as more routine and just a job rather than something to be fearful of.

I've always felt you wouldn't be allowed to buy an airline ticket with a credit card if the card company wasn't very sure you'd still be around to pay the next monthly installment! :-)

Not a pilot, but my job for a decade involved me doing an international weekly commute on a small plane (I mean, not a tiny plane but a 40-seater ATR42) into a tiny airport notorious for wind speed and challenging landings, include up to the 36 week flying limit when pregnant. Never an issue other than having to do a bit of flying around before attempting another landing in poor conditions.

I cured my fear of flying with fatalism - had it about a decade after no problems as a child. I was there feeling nervous on a short range flight one day when I said to myself, yes there's a tiny chance this plane may crash. Yes, you may die in a plane crash one day. But you aren't going to make any difference to that by being nervous, so you should try to learn to enjoy flights anyway, so you only suffer once instead of every time.

It was strangely effective for me.

I can highly recommend these podcasts @Monr0e
https://www.lovefly.co.uk/help/

Ed to say it didn't show full link as I hoped, but worth looking up/listening. There are interviews with pilots there, addressing your concerns. There's a good one about the noises the aircraft makes as well.

My late father was a fighter pilot and survived ejecting.

He spent many hours trying to explain how it was physics, not magic, keeping a plane up. I understood the words themselves, but my brain doesn’t lend itself to the concepts of physics.

I’m a terribly nervous flyer. The OTC anti sickness meds can help take the edge off because they are sedative. And this technique (see video) helps massively. In through the nose, out through the mouth. But you need to practise it before you need it, so you have “muscle memory” to carry you through when you need it to kick in fast.

Also a nervous flyer OP and I know what you mean about flight crew chatting. I always like seeing bored flight crew because I figure that in an emergency that wouldn’t be the first emotion you’d fake. I focus like blazes on watching something on my iPad/classical music and have a drink.

i was also reassured to learn that air traffic controllers often steer flights away from turbulence. Thank you to any ATCs out there ❤️

My DD is cabin crew for the low cost orange airline, so she flies short and medium haul often doing 4 sectors (2 out and backs) in a day. The safety standards for UK airlines are really high, and she always says to nervous fliers that she wants to go home every night as well! What they do is routine but it is also tightly controlled, most of the ‘rules’ on an aircraft are for passenger safety. If someone tells her they are nervous she will chat to them when she can. If you want a really mundane fact, she prepares her own food and brings it through security so she can heat it up in the oven as she’s not keen on the crew food!

I used to be a v nervous flyer.

Reading articles about what type of nervous flyer I was helped - is it the lack of control? The overcrowded cabin? Claustrophobia? Not being able to get off? How unnatural it feels? In reality, it alnost certainly isnt the fear of a disaster, because they're so unlikely to happen.... It made me realise I found it really stressful and uncomfortable and that my brain had somehow sort of tricked me into interpreting that as a fear of being in a crash, so I would avoid the stressful environment.