Carri Baxendale, 41, hadn’t been on a plane since she was 8 years old.
A fear of flying paralyzed her. She had never traveled farther than Kansas City, Mo., to the east, Galveston, Texas, to the south, Rapid City, S.D., to the north and Moab to the west.
But after taking a class to get over her fear, she successfully took a “graduation flight” to Salt Lake City on March 24.
“It was time to move on,” Baxendale said.
She bought a Salt Lake City T-shirt and slept in it when she got back from the trip “so when I woke up in the morning, I could see I wasn’t dreaming.”
She has already booked a flight to Fort Worth, Texas, next month to see her father and hopes to fly further.
“I’d like to eventually go to Mexico,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to go on a cruise.”
The Flight Without Fear course was sponsored by Frontier Airlines and organized by the Colorado chapter of the nonprofit Ninety Nines Inc. International Organization of Women Pilots. Another class is coming up in September.
Before the course was put on hiatus after Sept. 11, 2001, it had been sponsored by United Airlines.
In the process of teaching the class, flight attendants and other employees learn a lot about calming frightened passengers.
“Anything that will help people overcome their fear of flying means that we can have another passenger,” Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas said. “One of the things that makes for good customer service is understanding that not everyone feels comfortable about flying.”
Twenty-seven percent of U.S. adults would be at least somewhat fearful of getting on an airplane tomorrow, including 9 percent who would be very afraid, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll last year.
Frontier employees volunteer to help teach the class, which some called an “eye-opener.”
“For us, it’s hard to fathom a fear of flying,” flight attendant Annie Elliott said. She says she can now better help people who are afraid, to “walk them through the flight and just kind of talk them through it.”
The course curriculum includes lessons from aviation workers about what makes airplanes fly, the role weather plays and how flight crews are trained for emergencies. Students also are taken on field trips to Frontier’s maintenance facility, to a Federal Aviation Administration facility and to flight simulators. At the end, class members fly together to Salt Lake City.
Frontier pilot Donna Miller said Cam Kenyon, vice president of flight operations, encouraged her to restart the program with Frontier’s help.
“I love to fly, and I want everybody to love to fly,” she said.
Scharline Branan, 58, took the class to recover from a frightening experience she had while flying to Des Moines, Iowa. On that 1975 flight, the plane had to come to a jolting stop.
“I’ve been scared ever since,” Branan said.
Her fear made visiting family in Florida and Georgia an ordeal that required medication.
Some with a fear of flying think regular occurrences like turbulence or the extension of wing flaps indicate a problem, and they “freak out.”
“I thought the bell meant a problem,” said Chris Rives, 28, who lives in Loveland. “I had a totally different image of what a pilot does. I thought they were just constantly pushing buttons and switches.”
After taking the class, “I visualize these pilots, and they’re just calm,” she said.
Rives bought a ticket to visit her nephew in Washington, D.C., last October, and ended up canceling the trip because she was too scared.
“I told myself I wouldn’t let that happen again,” she said.
Along with the information presented in the Flight Without Fear course comes some plain advice.
For Branan, the line that changed her thinking was, “Your worry isn’t going to keep the plane airborne, so let it go.”
“Before you come to a class like this, you feel so alone, like, ‘What is the matter with me?”‘ said Kate Blair, one of the 17 class participants. “I’ve been afraid for 15 years. It’s been a turnaround.”
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-954-1488 or kyamanouchi@ denverpost.com.
How to beat the fear
Turbulence may feel uncomfortable, but it is normal. If turbulence bothers you, flying in the morning is often smoother than other times of the day.
When you board the plane, mention to the flight attendants that sometimes you get a little nervous about flying, and ask if you may visit with the pilots.
Practice breathing deeply to calm yourself.
Keep your thoughts positive.
Quite often, people who have a fear of flying also have a strong or overactive imagination. Odds are, you are not psychic. Remind yourself of this fact, and focus on reality.
Learn about what troubles you, such as basic aerodynamics or how air-traffic control works, through the Internet or other means. But don’t fixate on the negative. “There was one guy who was Googling airplane crashes, and we said, ‘Don’t do that. That’s not helping,”‘ said Donna Miller, coordinator of Flight Without Fear.
Sources: Denver Post research, www.air linetraveladvice.com/fear.shtml, Donna Miller of Flight Without Fear
