Passengers who are afraid of flying: what actually works from the crew side, and the sentence that never does
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#1 Air France, and I have a specific interest in the frightened passenger because my mother is one and I have spent a career testing what helps on strangers. Here is the list, and the one sentence every crew member says that does not work.
What works
Being told before take off. If a passenger says 'I am a nervous flyer' at boarding, the whole flight goes better. I tell the crew, I check on them at the seatbelt sign, I explain the noises before they happen. The passenger who hides it gets none of that.
The noises, explained. The thump of the gear, the change in engine note at top of climb, the flaps, the chime. Every one of those is a small terror to someone who does not know what it is. A crew member who says 'in about a minute you will hear a clunk under the floor, that is the wheels coming up, completely normal' has removed a terror.
The crew's face. If I look bored during turbulence, the passenger reads bored. If I sit down calmly, the cabin sits down calmly. I have said this in other threads. It is the most powerful tool and it costs nothing.
A task. Something to hold, a drink to manage, the child to look after. A frightened brain with a task is a less frightened brain.
The truth. 'This is normal for this route' when it is. 'The pilots have done this a thousand times' because they have. Not 'there is nothing to worry about', which is a dismissal, not a reassurance.
The sentence that never works
'Do not worry.' Every crew member says it. Nobody has ever stopped worrying because of it. It tells the passenger that their fear is a nuisance. Replace it with a fact: 'this is the bit where it gets bumpy, it lasts about ten minutes, I will be right here'.
The one who taught me
A passenger who was shaking at boarding, who I sat with for two minutes before the doors closed, who I checked on four times, and who at the end said 'that was the first flight in ten years I did not cry on'. I have done the two minutes at boarding ever since.
Crew, your techniques?
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#2 The noises explained is the whole thing on an ATR, where the noises are louder and stranger. I do a small running commentary for the nervous ones on the island routes. 'That is the propeller pitch changing, that is normal.' It works every time.
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#3 The 3am galley visitor rule from another thread is the same rule: five minutes with the frightened person is worth more than anything else you will do on the flight. And 'do not worry' is banned from my vocabulary since my first year.
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#4 Purser, and I brief the crew on the nervous flyers by seat number if they have told the ground staff or us. A crew that knows who is frightened is a crew that can help. The passenger who hides it is the one we cannot reach.
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#5 Crew with a fear of flying, as I wrote elsewhere, and everything Raoul says is what worked on me from the inside. The noises explained. The fact instead of the reassurance. He is right about all of it and I can say so from both sides.
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#7 Alaska, and the task trick works on adults as well as children. 'Could you hold this for me for a moment' during turbulence, handing them something harmless. Their brain moves from the wing to the object. Old crew trick. Still the best.