Fear of Flying

             


            I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things.
                                                                            Antoine de Saint-Exupery

 

      I must fly this summer.  A special occasion requires it.
      I would as soon be beaten with a broom handle. On a scale of personal gratification this would rank with the experience of commercial air travel, and it would save money at the same time. But it would not, alas, get me to my destination. I must fly.
     I suppose that Saint-Exupery, the poet-aviator who found beauty and wonder in flying, would be disappointed with those of us who dread it. Statisticians surely are. They assert year after year that I am safer in an airplane than in my automobile.
     Statisticians may say things that are accurate but not useful.  They could tell you that the statistical chances of surviving Russian roulette are actually pretty good. However, the downside of this model is so bad that prudent people are not guided by it.
     In the matter of flying, the statisticians' implacable numbers cannot change certain facts. If my automobile's engine fails, I will coast to the side of the road and languish there until the tow truck arrives. If my airplane's engine fails, I will die a fiery death.
     The possibility of fiery death -- however small -- is a flaw in the quality of my travel experience.
      In earlier America, one form of community punishment required a miscreant to sit astride a fence rail. The rail was then hoisted to the shoulders of  men who carried it through town for the purpose of exposing the victim to public mockery. The victim's physical pain might be magnified through the attachment of weights to the ankles.
     Reference sources do not clearly say which person first imagined this form of torture. Nonetheless, we may reasonably wonder if a descendant designed the modern commercial airline seat.
     Occupancy of this perch does not require me to undergo public mockery.  It does require a certain willingness to grovel. I am not allowed to know, forthrightly, how much I must pay. (What's the fare to Keokuk? It depends.) Down to the last  minute, I cannot know if I'm actually going to get what I paid for. (Flight 911 has been delayed/canceled/rescheduled/moved to gate 4,792.)
      And under penalty of ejection or even arrest, I must reconcile to the possibility of being treated as a hostage.   
     Perhaps some future item of business school curriculum will explain how an entire industry came to a business model based on the essentials of mugging and extortion. Meanwhile, we must take things as they come.
      Thus I will arrive at this summer's occasion mildly addled by a mixture of anxiety, anger and resentment. People will inquire about my trip. I will offer a game smile and say something noncommittal.
     They will smile back in implicit understanding of what one travel expert notes: We define a successful airline flight in negatives. The plane was not late; luggage was not lost; there was no screaming infant two rows back; the passenger in the next seat was not a boor.
     The ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus said that adversity contributes to learning.
     That has been true of me in the matter of flying.
     I've learned to suspect that statisticians don't actually do much flying themselves.