US$500 therapy, avoiding Boeing: Indians cope with flight anxiety after Ahmedabad crash
Since the June 12 crash, ‘people don’t want to hear about Dreamliners’, as many travellers shun Air India and seek alternative airlines
Dinesh uses a combination of flight simulation and counselling at his Cockpit Vista centre for “fear of flying solutions” in Bengaluru, the only one in India. The centre has received more than 100 inquiries since the disaster, compared to a previous average of about ten a month.
“Fear of flying is typically to do with things happening on an aeroplane – the sounds, motion, vibrations … exposure therapy is the only solution,” Dinesh, 55, said during a tour of the facility where he showed how cockpit controls relate to movements that often worry passengers.
The centre has a simulator for a Boeing and Cessna plane to help people experience how landings and take-offs appear from the cockpit and understand that not every vibration or sound during a flight signals danger.
WhatsApp messages Dinesh received, and shared with Reuters, showed individuals complaining about “losing confidence” after the crash while others said it was “too hard on the brain”.
A chilling 59-second CCTV clip showing the crash of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which killed 260 people, has been widely shared on social media and TV channels since the June 12 accident, which aviation and mental health experts said had led to an unusually high number of counselling requests.