I will be flying twice in the next few months: once to my 20th (I feel old!) high school reunion and once to a friend's wedding. As I make the plans, reserve rental cars and hotel rooms, and schedule time with old friends, I keep thinking: I'm making plans as if I'm going to make it there alive.
I have to keep making plans as if the plane is not going to drop out of the sky, as if nothing more is going to go wrong than my usual stuffy plane-air induced sinus problems, and after a few hours in transit, I'm going to walk right up the ramp and off the plane on the other side of the country. I pretend that making the plans is going to keep me safe, as if all the people who ever boarded a doomed flight had no plans, as if they didn't think about who was supposed to meet them or where they were going to stay or what they were going to do when they got there. And I won't make that mistake.
I know, I know. Statistically speaking, flying is safer than driving. But eventually something will go wrong in both cars and planes, whether through malice or simple human imperfection. And a plane travels so much faster than a car; it doesn't stay safely tethered to the earth, but sails through the air, inexplicably, defying gravity with its huge, dense, metallic bulk. When something goes wrong in a plane, it goes horribly, fatally, falling from the sky wrong.
I try to block that out by planning: thinking about what books I will read, and what music I will listen to, and who I will see, and what I will wear, and how I will post to my blog while I'm away. Because maybe if I plan to end up safely on the other side of that trip, maybe if I plan to read a really good book as a huge shuddering chunk of metal rockets me through the sky, maybe if I picture intensely enough the friends who are waiting on the other side, maybe it will be ok.
Although I know you are very familar with the therapies available for those of us who have 'aviatophobia'...I assure you..don't waste your time...they won't make any difference...once afraid...always afraid. I would rather drive for 30 days than to take an airplane that would get me there in a few hours...one of the reasons (besides being financially unable) for us not going to Hawaii on vacation (my husband's dream). Last time I flew I was 5 months pregnant (with my now 12 year old daughter)...I hated every minute of it...and I couldn't 'self-medicate' due to...well...being pregnant. There is no easy way to get through this..except for perhaps my favorite 'rubber band therapy'...get a rubber band and put it around your wrist...every time you start to think negative thoughts about having to fly...snap it...yep..it will hurt..but only for a second..do this enough times and you will find yourself 'stopping' those negative thoughts (even if you can't do anything about the fear)...in the world of therapy we actually call this a 'thought stopping' type of therapy
...trust me...it works. BTW...thank you for reading my Faith Journal...I often wonder who reads it, even though I initially set up for a way to be held accountable for my reading and understanding God's Word...I still wonder if it's read.Thanks 
sorry this comment is soooo long!! Must be the Frappucinno I just drank.
I always approach a flight the way I approach all the ridiculous, unsafe things I choose to do. "Well, I might die, but if I don't go, the door to the rose garden will remain forever closed, and I'll be 99 and on my deathbed and thinking about that goddamned flight..."
T.S. Eliot's a mother fucker. If I could hang out with any poet, ever, it would probably be him, and probably it would be so that I could punch him in the mouth.
Take a dramamine. it always puts me to sleep for the first "take off mintues" and when you wake up it's beverage time.
To m,e flying to a place is fine but flying back always scares me. As if I'll die on the flight back. crazy me.
I flew out of Newark a few days after 9/11 (we were lucky, as the international flight we had booked home was one of the first flights to actually leave on schedule. Just as well, as I had just graduated from college and was totally broke and couldn't afford to stay in NYC any longer). You could still see the smoke spiraling up from the remains of the World Trade Center.
It didn't really bother me, though, as the only think I've ever been afraid of is myself.