For some Minnesotans, air disasters trigger increased fear of flying and less travel

The thought of flying on a passenger jet frightens Lee Wallace.

It’s not new for the 78-year-old Plymouth retiree, who has sought therapy for his anxiety. But it is an obstacle he hopes to overcome soon — even as widely reported crashes and near-misses dominate headlines and exacerbate his negative feelings about air travel.

“It’s real. There’s no question about that,” said Wallace, who canceled a Caribbean cruise last winter to avoid the flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Florida. “When you get in that plane, you’ve got no control.”

Wallace is not alone in his anxiety. Recent opinion polls and reviews of U.S. consumer behavior suggest more people are fearful of air travel in the wake of recent disasters, despite the nation’s longstanding record as a safety leader. Airline executives are now reporting lessened domestic flight demand, partly driven by recent erosion of faith in the system.

In the near term, some of the top U.S.-based airlines are seeing slower bookings for domestic travel, caused in part by the impact of air incidents, along with wider economic effects such as waning confidence in the health of the economy.

Delta CEO Ed Bastian mentioned the fear effect during an investor conference last month, saying the shock to consumers coincided with a stall in company growth and factored into the company’s decision to reduce its expected earnings in the first quarter.

Commercial airline crashes remain rare events. Before an Army helicopter collided with American Airlines Flight 5342 on Jan. 29, killing all 67 people aboard both aircraft near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the U.S. had not seen an air catastrophe of such scale since 2009.

But in the following months, stories about other fatal crashes of small aircraft in Pennsylvania, New York and Alaska have gripped Americans and upped scrutiny around the air travel industry. Among the incidents were a go-around at Chicago’s Midway to narrowly avoid a runway collision; a jet engine fire in Denver that left 12 with minor injuries; and two jets clipping wings while taxiing at Reagan with several members of Congress aboard.

Some events struck closer to home for Minnesotans. On Feb. 17, Delta Air Lines Flight 4819 left Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP) and landed in a fiery, upside-down wreck on a snowy Toronto runway, injuring 21 of the 80 aboard. Last month, a U.S. Bancorp executive died when the single-engine airplane he was flying went down and struck a home in Brooklyn Park.

Even if it does not feel like it these days, aviation experts say air travel — especially flying on commercial airliners — is safe. And the statistics seem to back that up.

As of mid-April, there were 31 fatal airline crashes in the U.S., according to the National Transportation Safety Board, which investigates major airline and small aircraft crashes, runway incursions and other safety-related incidents. By the same time last year, there were 34. Total cases opened year-over-year are also slightly lower, recent NTSB data show.

Heightened safety standards adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration and the airline industry, along with enhanced aircraft safety designs, have contributed to a steep decline in overall crashes and incidents in the past 20 years. Most disasters in aviation occur on personal flights and private operations.

The record today is the result of decades of innovation. In the 1980s, there was a general belief within the industry that growing volumes of air traffic could translate into a major air incident as often as once or twice a month, said Todd Curtis, an aviation safety analyst and former Boeing engineer.

Catastrophic events that are considered rare today were “happening, in some years, several times a year, just in the United States,” Curtis said. “Double or triple the amount of traffic, you can imagine how crazy it would [have gotten] if things didn’t change. So, the industry had an incentive to work toward this.”

At the same time, social media, camera phones, and a nonstop news cycle have vastly expanded the visibility of aviation problems, coinciding with the rise of advanced aircraft tracking technology and online government datasets.

“The risk is less. But in my opinion, the public’s perception of safety might be that it’s even less safe now,” Curtis said, pointing to heightened public awareness and news media coverage as drivers of those safety perceptions.

Last year, a research project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) demonstrated commercial air travel getting roughly twice as safe every 10 years since the late 1960s. Arnold Barnett, a professor and air travel safety expert, likened the continued industry improvements to “an aerial version of Moore’s Law,” which describes the prediction that computing power on microchips would double every two years without big increases in cost.

MIT’s researchers placed the risk of a death during commercial air travel at 1 per 13.7 million boardings around the world as of 2022. That improved from 1 in 350,000 as recently as 1977.

Despite the safety record, research shows 25 million Americans have a fear of flying, according to Cleveland Clinic. Mental health experts say the motivations and intensities of those anxieties are varied, and people cope differently — from avoiding travel altogether to white-knuckling flights.

Jenny Matthews, founder of Bloomington-based State of Mind Therapy, is a licensed therapist who specializes in fear of flying. She said she suddenly found herself afraid to get on an airplane for the first time while visiting Italy during grad school. Her personal experience motivated her to find ways to treat others with the same affliction.

She and her husband, a licensed therapist with a background in aviation, provide a periodic group class at MSP to introduce fearful flyers to a dry run with no strings attached. Participants go through the TSA checkpoint and talk in a group setting inside a mock airplane.

Some of the people Matthews finds seeking treatment have avoided flying for decades. Others developed fears more recently and have misperceptions about air travel. In some cases, teaching people more about aviation is enough to get them flying.

“Some people have all that knowledge already, and they’re still kind of stuck in their anxiety about it,” Matthews said. “So, we have to take it further.”

Tom Bunn, a retired airline captain and licensed therapist, also works with fearful flyers. In 1982, he founded SOAR, a program that offers a course, videos, literature and consultation designed to help ease anxieties about air travel.

Bunn said a torrent of news around air safety is a setback for many people he’s treated.

“What I hear from people: ‘There’s so much stuff happening now,’” Bunn said. “There’s not more happening, but it’s getting hit [with public exposure] more.

“The interesting thing is, flying has gotten safer and safer, but the trend of how many people are afraid has not changed,” he added.

Wallace, the retiree from Plymouth, has suffered commercial air travel anxiety as well as claustrophobia. Books on the subject and therapy have yet to cure him. Lately he is turning to his faith as well. He asked his priest on Palm Sunday to bless medallions bearing St. Christopher, the patron saint of travel. He’s always kept one in his car.

“I’ll be hanging on to these,” Wallace said of the medallions, adding he hopes to fly to a vacation destination by this winter.

Meantime, some of the broader downturn referenced by Delta and others may already be taking shape locally. Year-over-year passenger traffic at MSP had dipped 1.7% in February, according to the latest available data from the Metropolitan Airports Commission.

Last week, travelers who spoke to the Minnesota Star Tribune at a baggage claim in MSP cited a touch, or more, of unease with air safety. Others pointed to cost and convenience as fueling reservations about flying.

Nancee Meuser, 63, flew in from Greenville, S.C. A Delta loyalist, she feels safest on the airline and travels a lot with points. She has less faith in other airlines to maintain their fleets and will go out of her way to fly her chosen carrier.

In town for a long weekend trip from Memphis were sisters Quiana Reed, 46, and Ieshia Nix, 50. The Prince fans came to visit Paisley Park.

Reed is unafraid to fly. But her sister is another story.

“Nervous. Very nervous,” Nix said of how she felt on the plane, recalling at least seven minutes of turbulence. She travels by car all the time, sometimes on long road trips, without issue.

Her sister reminds her that flying is statistically safer. It doesn’t help.