The 'Xanax' flyers

There are so many things in life that we humans are afraid of. Some are scared of supernatural creatures, lions, bears, dogs and even spiders or lizards. There are some people who’d scream their guts out at the sight of a harmless butterfly.

Air travel today is one of the safest methods of transportation, yet there are many people who start panicking once the landing gear retracts. Most times these anxious flyers don’t show any symptoms of fear until take-off. They seem like every other traveller heading for vacation or home, smiling, chatting with others.

For the person who has always been at the front line, battling with cockroaches, spiders, and many other dreadfully unexplainable things that cause phobias on behalf of the scared ones, this might sound crazy. Normally when people are scared of something they express it, yet most of the anxious flyers refuse to do so.

It’s absolutely okay to be a nervous flyer, but what’s not okay is not telling your air hostess that you are a nervous flyer, and not one of the crazies, who loses his/her marbles after a couple of drinks.

There are many holiday makers flying from Jakarta to Bali, and of course everybody just wants to have a good time. There was a newly married couple who were constantly staring into each other’s eyes, hands entwined. Oh how lovely!  Not for a minute, I'm guessing, did the happy guy think about how unlucky he was about to get by being married to the most beautiful blonde in the world, who was scared of flying.

As soon as the aircraft started rolling on the runway, the lady went into a frenzy. She was screaming out loud, swearing at her new husband for not taking a cruise instead of a flight to Bali.  The husband wore a constant surprised look on his face not knowing what to do, probably imagining how the rest of his life was going to be with her sharp nails digging into his skin.

In a split second she had taken off her seat belt, and was trying to open the aircraft door (luckily this only works in movies). Unfortunately my jump seat was in front of her. As the aircraft was climbing up and above 10,000 ft, I pushed her back to her seat and asked the husband to hold on to this wreck of a flyer until we levelled off to a safe altitude to move about the cabin.

After much attempt, distraction, long talks and warm drinks, she calmed down, and finally came to admit that she is a nervous flyer, and she was embarrassed to be so. Being a nervous flyer is absolutely normal, and it is not something to be ashamed of.

If she did inform us earlier, the crew would have tried their best to distract her avoiding all the drama she had to go through and the captain wouldn't have had to inform the authorities that she hindered safety of the flight by trying to open a door. At least she will now have to take a cruise to Bali instead of a short flight, and I could see the husband wasn’t very pleased with that, clearly he was scared of travelling by water.

After keeping an eye on the lady, I walked past the cabin to notice a middle- aged lady having shortness of breath, clearly showing initial signs of hyperventilation.  I approached her with a smile, held her hand and asked her if she was okay and to my relief she finally declared, “I am a nervous flyer!”  And so we managed the situation before it got worse.

After this long tiring day, I just can hope that anxious flyers would declare out loud that they are anxious. Airhostesses know the tricks of the trade; they could keep anyone distracted for the rest of the flight, with so much of travel stories, shopping tips etc. At the end of the day there is no fun in giving CPR to someone who simply stopped breathing because they were just scared to be flying over the clouds.


 

Love, Dany.