Close your eyes and picture this: You and your best friends are planning the perfect getaway, booking a flight for your dream study abroad experience, or simply flying away to visit your family during the break. The excitement level is high….but the anxiety is higher by the thought of a plane.
If the thought of flying in 2025 makes your heart pound out of your chest or your stomach uneasy, you are NOT alone. According to the Cleveland Clinic, approximately 25 million Americans have aerophobia, which has slowly increased after airplane crashes in the United States. However, air travel is the safest form, with the odds of a fatality probability of 1 out of 13.7 million passenger boardings in the United States. In fact, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from 2009 to 2022, American citizens traveled a jaw-dropping 5.9 million miles, which equals 2.3 light years. Aerospace professionals remind us that airplane travel is among the safest forms of transportation.
So, what exactly is the key to overcoming flight anxiety?
Here Are My Favorite Six Steps To Combating Flight Anxiety:
Whatever you do….do not try to talk yourself out of anxiety because realistically it makes it worse! Instead embrace it!
Try these six recommendations:
- Turn Your Flight Into A Coffee Date
- Even though caffeine is typically not recommended to drink while experiencing anxiety, I have found this method to work in big airports. Instead of allowing your nerves to overcome the reason that you are traveling, make your flight feel like a coffee date. Find the nearest Starbucks, Petes Coffee, Caribou Coffee, or Esteins Bagels (any coffee shop works) and order your favorite coffee. Once you have received your semi-expensive coffee, pop on your earbuds or headphones to start listening to a playlist, podcast, (or, depending on how good the wifi is at the airport) YouTube. By allowing your brain to associate flying with relaxing cafe vibes, you will notice that your anxiety or nerves will be more at ease. As a girl with severe anxiety and also a flyer since 2009, I typically do this when I arrive at the airport early and when my anxiety levels begin to get high.
- Romantizing The Views From Over 30,000 Feet
- Instead of allowing the worrisome thoughts of being so high in the sky, embrace all the lovely views that you may be able to encounter. Pretend that you are the main character (or Y/N) in a movie, looking out and acknowledging the new positive experiences that you are about to endure in your adulthood. The simplicity of shifting your overall perspective can make a huge difference in your travels.
- Creating Your Pre-Flight Ritual
- Small or large superstitions are not just for sports teams! Whether it is wearing your favorite sweatshirt, listening to the same playlist each time you step on a plane, bringing your favorite book, or building your ritual, it can help give your mind a sense of control and familiarity each time you step onto an aircraft. An example from my experience is that I listen to either the Hamilton or Hadestown soundtrack (yes, musicals help me get through flights), allowing my brain to focus on a rich story always helps me relax once I board the airplane.
- Keeping A Close Eye On The Flight Attendants
- This method works better if you have an aisle seat, but if you start to get freaked out while en route to your destination, allow yourself to look at the faces of the four or five flight attendants on board your airplane. Flight Attendants are professionals whose task is to not only serve, but to help in the case of an emergency. This method is to remind your brain that if they are not freaking out, most likely you should not be freaking out either.
- The Jello Theory For Yourself And Children
- In the Summer of 2022, on Tiktok, a pilot’s Australian wife uploaded a video about a new figurative way to look at turbulence and the feeling of falling after lift-off. Anna Paul claims that you do not need to be scared due to the metaphor of a piece of a napkin in a cup of jello. According to the Pauls, the reason that an airplane experiences hardcore pressure from the top, bottom, and each side of the exterior. She depicts with her example that with this pressure, the airplane is not going to fall out of the sky but instead shake based on violent or non-violent airflow. Alongside the rapid changes in airflow, passengers in an airplane can also experience unpleasant jolts that make their stomach tickle.
- Over the past three years, this “theory” has come out to help all travelers with their airplane anxiety, including those who are in the aviation field, such as Guy Gratton, Ph.D, a testing Pilot and also an Associate Professor of Aviation and the Environment at Cranfield University in England came forward about if this theory is factual and should people trust this illustration of turbulence. Dr Gratton says that this theory is good for relaxing your brain about flying for a trip. However, he claims that it is only partially correct in terms of how the airflow subjects the airplane and whether or not the plane is close to the ground. He says that turbulence can only move the airplane when it is within the parcel of air or, in this case, the jello. Thus, pilots are trained to maneuver the aircraft at slower speeds or be grounded at the airport so that the plane does not experience any damage, just bumpy air time.
- Need Reassurance? Easy! Just Dial A Pilot!
- On June 26, 2023, Kyle Koukol started this company where professional commercial airline pilots can be called by American or International travelers to combat flight anxiety because his sister-in-law had a lot of fear around flying. Dial A Pilot is a very great source to relax your mind because pilots have hours of training to get you, the flight attendants, and themselves to the destination. Koukol’s program is very simple and straightforward. Calls do range from 35 to 50 dollars, but if you have anxiety over or want to travel after the recent accidents in 2025, this is a great investment. Their mission is to “help nervous flyers overcome their fear of flying, one phone call at a time.”
- Koukol also has a podcast, “From The Flight Deck,” where he goes into depth with his own professional experience and other aerospace professionals’ experience with different topics surrounding anxiety, nerves, or just facts about planes or airports. As someone who is going on a spring break vacation with multiple connecting flights, his podcast has helped my mind in a matter of ways I never could have imagined.
Final Takeoff: Embracing The Sky With Confidence
At the end of the day flying is never about the TSA or getting there, it is all about the new opportunities that await you. Never allow anxiety to hold you back instead you should use these strategies to shift your own mindset around flying. Whether you are jetting off for a family and friend reunion or vacation with your friends, remember this: You are safe. You are capable of seeing the world. You are prepared for what awaits for you at your destination. So fasten your seatbelt, take a deep breath, grab a coffee and enjoy your flight.
Want to read more on the fear of flying read Juanita Olarte’s Article from the Her Campus at UCF chapter!