Fear of flying phobia: how to treat it?
Fear of flying phobia is estimated to affect between one fifth and one third of travelers to varying degrees. While highly debilitating, there are techniques, courses, and workshops available to overcome flight anxiety! Discover how to detect it, identify its causes, and how to treat your fear of flying phobia so you can finally travel with a free mind.
Are you affected by the fear of flying phobia?
Fear of flying phobia is a manifestation of fear and anxiety at the mention of air travel, whether within your country or on the other side of the world. In its most acute form, the anxiety can appear as early as the trip planning and flight booking stage. It increases as the departure day approaches, potentially causing insomnia.
Feelings of anxiety and distress peak upon arrival at the airport, during boarding, and during the flight. Once at altitude, the patient may experience great discomfort, stress, and becomes hyper-receptive to surrounding signals. Every signal is then interpreted catastrophically, whether it be unfamiliar noises or in-flight turbulence – perfectly normal occurrences.
Fear of flying phobia manifests in varying degrees and can cause symptoms of stress, anxiety, or even panic.
List of fear of flying phobia symptoms
- Trembling
- Sweating
- Heart palpitations
- Gastrointestinal difficulties
- Blushing
- Loss of bearings
- Feeling of disorientation
- Irritability
Fear of flying phobia and avoidance
Another symptom is avoidance. In its acute form, it consists of no longer flying at all, for fear of confronting these anxieties. The affected person will carefully avoid airports, which has the harmful effect of entrenching the anxieties through the deceptive comfort of no longer feeling them.
Another, more common avoidance strategy: many people who suffer from flight anxiety resort to medication or alcohol, before or during the flight. This helps alleviate symptoms by lowering the level of awareness, without actually overcoming the fear of flying.
Sometimes, the symptoms are mild enough to be tolerated. The flight can take place at the cost of significant discomfort or stress, without reaching the point of panic and phobia. The traveler will often immerse themselves in distractions (films or books) to avoid thinking about a situation that deeply worries them. Although far less debilitating, this situation should be monitored to prevent mild stress from developing into a full fear of flying!
Whatever your degree of fear of flying (phobia, panic, stress, or anxiety), read carefully what follows! We provide you with techniques and methods to overcome your fear of flying lastingly. To learn more about your fear of flying, you can already take our questionnaire on this page.
Where does the fear of flying phobia come from?
Fear of flying: a complex phobia
Where does the fear of flying phobia come from? In reality, there is no universal answer to this question. It is an anxiety disorder that is particularly difficult to diagnose, different for each person.
Fear of flying phobia is a complex phobia, a mix of fears specific to flying (fear of technical failure, pilot error, turbulence, fear of a crash...) and non-specific fears (claustrophobia, social phobias, fear of the ocean, fear of losing control...). In some patients, these non-specific fears predate the fear of flying phobia, but they are revealed by the situation of air travel.
The problem with phobia or anxiety about flying is that these disorders become intertwined. They become difficult to untangle and identify without outside help (whether through cognitive behavioral therapy or hypnosis).
The feeling of unease becomes self-sufficient and takes the name of fear of flying, anxiety, or even phobia of flying when it becomes truly paralyzing.
How does one become phobic of flying?
Fear of flying phobia is not innate. It is always curable. It cannot be said enough: nobody is born with a phobia of flying! On the contrary, it is an acquired fear, aggregating pre-existing disorders.
The acquisition of fear of flying phobia is impossible to generalize. Sometimes it can arise from a bad experience on a plane: a turbulent flight, strong turbulence, a malfunction during the flight... In many other cases, it appears from one day to the next, without a logical cause being detectable. Some phobias even appear in cabin crew or frequent travelers, after thousands of hours of uneventful flying!
Finally, in many cases, flight anxiety is self-perpetuated by media exposure of air crashes. Although infinitely rarer than road accidents, their coverage accentuates anxiety phenomena in people with an anxious predisposition. That is why it is advisable to avoid focusing on continuous news and to seek balanced information from real aviation safety specialists.
Definition of fear of flying phobia
Fear of flying phobia is also called aviophobia or aerodromophobia. It is classified among anxiety disorders. It is the phobia of air travel.
Phobia should be distinguished from simple fear. The latter is a graduated, adapted reaction, useful in case of danger. On the contrary, phobia is a pathological fear that requires treatment. It has no connection to reality and considerably overestimates the risk.
Phobia is close to anxiety, a state of psychological distress caused by the fear of danger. One can speak of fear of flying phobia when the anxiety is highly debilitating, to the point of generating great discomfort or making it impossible to fly.
In-flight anxieties: 3 examples of triggers
Air travel triggers specific anxieties, often pre-existing. Below are 3 examples (non-exhaustive) of anxiety disorders that manifest once in flight, and that can be treated separately.
Fear of flying and claustrophobia
Claustrophobia is the fear of confined spaces. Very common, it is one of the main causes of flight phobias. Affected patients struggle with being in a small cabin without being able to leave.
In particular, what manifests in claustrophobia is the panicked fear of not being able to escape in case of danger. It is linked to the loss of control felt by many air travelers. Once identified, treating claustrophobia as an anxiety disorder is one possible technique for overcoming the fear of flying phobia.
Air pockets and turbulence during flights
Air pockets are probably the most widespread misconception about aircraft. They come from a false belief that there are areas of "emptiness" in the sky. In these air pockets, the aircraft is supposedly no longer supported, experiences turbulence, and can even fall.
Of course, this is not true! Air pockets do not exist, because there is no more emptiness in the air than in water. Turbulence is caused by movements of air masses. Without any danger to aircraft, they cause at most some discomfort in the cabin. Within the framework of cognitive behavioral therapy (or CBT), patients can receive reliable information about aircraft and aviation safety to short-circuit their misconceptions and defuse most of their flight fears.
Fear of heights
Fear of heights (or acrophobia) is a disproportionate fear of heights in relation to the actual dangers. It should be remembered that an aircraft cannot fall from the sky! On the contrary, thanks to lift, it can fly for a great many kilometers, even if the engines were switched off. Fear of heights can also be overcome during fear of flying workshops based on CBT.
How to overcome the fear of flying phobia?
Great news: fear of flying phobia is not inevitable! It can be treated in all cases, regardless of the degree, with very high success rates (95% for Fofly.com workshops).
It is never too late, nor too early, to treat a fear of flying phobia. Everyone can benefit from what fear of flying workshops offer and rediscover the pleasure of flying peacefully.
Overcoming the fear of flying is a great achievement. It allows you to feel fully in control of your destiny and to enjoy trips with family or friends, at home or around the world. For business travel, it allows you to finally make professional trips without being burdened by phobias or anxieties.
To overcome your fear of flying phobia, there is not just one method: hypnosis, homeopathy, or self-help books also have their proponents. That said, it is indeed in the field of psychology and cognitive behavioral therapy that the best results are observed for curing phobias and traveling with peace of mind.
Cognitive behavioral therapy
Every therapy for fear of flying phobia is different. It must indeed identify the nature of the anxieties and the anxiety disorders that may compose it.
Identifying the cause of a phobia or anxiety about flying is fundamental. It provides the opportunity to treat the potential pre-existing disorder underlying the fear of flying phobia separately. Whether it is claustrophobia, social fear, anxiety related to loss of control, or others... Knowing the exact cause behind your fear of flying phobia is the first step toward targeting the therapy.
Cognitive behavioral therapy (or CBT) has proven its effectiveness in treating phobias in general, and in particular for fear of flying phobia.
How? These therapies are structured around two components: 1. cognitive and 2. behavioral. The cognitive part provides a knowledge base to understand the subject of your phobia: aircraft, flights, piloting, aviation safety. The behavioral component allows you to build a physical response to stress symptoms. It includes relaxation or breathing techniques. Together, CBT allows you to replace the thought patterns and bad reflexes that led to the vicious cycle of fear of flying phobia.
Workshops for fear of flying
Fear of flying workshops based on CBT are the best way to overcome your flight phobia or anxiety. Whatever the degree, they offer a comprehensive approach based on the latest advances in cognitive behavioral therapy, applied by professional therapists (airline pilot and psychologist).
Delivered in the form of lessons, training, or workshops, the therapy content allows for highly effective treatment, targeted to each person's phobia. Optionally, one or more accompanied flights with a therapist are possible, to apply what was learned during actual air travel.
To learn more, all the information about fear of flying workshops can be found on this page. They achieve a success rate of 95%!
In-person workshops
Take part in a one-day workshop in Paris or Marseille with an airline pilot and a specialized psychologist.
Available with and without flight
E-learning
Follow a complete and flexible distance learning course, available year-round from the comfort of your home.