Fear of flying can be overcome

Press, 29 February 1984, Page 9

Fear of flying can be overcome

Is it safe for an aircraft’s wings to move in flight or to fall apart on landing or for a piece to fall off an engine on landing? These are some of the questions an Air New Zealand psychologist, Mr Grant Amos, has been answering in Christchurch this week in a programme designed to help people to overcome the fear of flying. He puts the fear of flying into three categories. The first category is anxietyprone — where the person has never flown. The second category is the nervous flier, who flies but does not like it, and the rest are “flight phobics” who have flown before but now find the aircraft environment uncomfortable. All of these people are catered for by Air New Zealand’s programme, which is being run for the

first time in Christchurch, this week. Mr Amos, who is a registered psychologist, joined the airline about 5% years ago, training staff in customer relations and customer services. At the end of 1982 he moved to dealing with cabin crew. He is now the senior cabin crew instructor. He traces the fear of flying programme to an article which appeared in the “New Zealand Woman’s Weekly” in 1980. The article outlined the problem and said that it was treated at a clinic in London. After seeing the article, a lecturer at the University of Canterbury, where Mr Amos studied, told the magazine that Mr Amos could do the same programme in New Zealand and already worked for an airline. Approaches to the airline

met with the answer that Mr Amos was too busy to run a similar programme here. Mr Amos has now run three programmes in Auck-

land and one in Invercargill. This is the first time a programme has been offered in Christchurch. In response to advertisements 50 to 60 people applied to join the programme, and 25 have been accommodated. Mr Amos hopes to return in May or June to run a further programme. The programme is free, and Mr Amos acknowledges that one way to improve the course would be to make a small charge, run two programmes — one each during the day and the evening — and end the course with a flight in a Friendship aircraft. The programme is organised in four three-hour sessions. In the first session two main objectives are set. “To alleviate the fear that they are nutters and for people to realise they are

1. not alone,” Mr Amos said. i The group talks about i how its members have learned negative ways to ■ face flying, and learns basic ■ relaxation techniques. The • second session is devoted to { learning about how aircraft ’ stay in the air and the facts and figures of flying. The ’ third session is about building and safety. The fourth session has a practical emphasis, the group moving to the airport terminal where they have a look round, board an aircraft, and get the sense of movement while being towed in it. About four people on the present programme have never flown before. Of the 25, most are middle-aged to elderly women. “I am not sure if this is because women get more phobias or because women get more emotional and ex-

press their feelings more,” Mr Amos said. “I suspect that it is to do with the fact that women are allowed to be more emotional people.” The feedback from the programmes is good. Mr Amos said he asked people to send him a postcard from their next destination. Many did and others sent him letters. Mr Amos said the United States Federal Aviation Authority had estimated that 10 per cent of any population was phobic, and in New Zealand this would amount to about 320,000. However, he does not see it as the moral responsibility of the national carrier to respond to this problem although there are precedents for this in Australia, the United States, and Scandinavia, where Qantas, Pan Am and S.A.S. run similar programmes.