Brussels Airlines to Develop a Course to Help Passenger Overcome Fear of Flying

Brussels Airlines wants to help anyone who might have a phobia of flying get over it by offering a unique course. The Belgian airline said last week that it is developing the program in collaboration with behavioral therapists from a psychological counseling firm.

The course will employ virtual reality (VR) technology to increase students’ comfort level when flying for the first time. The airline said that the majority of students who successfully finish the program can fly without being afraid.

People in Belgium traveled as much last summer as they had before the pandemic, as the aviation industry has gradually resumed its previous level of routine. Moreover, flights to and from the hub of Brussels Airlines at Brussels Airport have increasingly increased.

Psychologist and behavioral therapist Marieke Impens works for The Human Connection, a business that provides psychological counseling to people who experience problems that impede them from fully appreciating life. Impens claimed that the rise in air travel has resulted in an increase in the number of persons seeking assistance for their fear of flying.

“Almost logically, there are again more requests for help from people with a fear of flying. These are people from all walks of life, from teenagers to those in their seventies. And it’s really not just business travelers. Think of parents whose children go abroad to study with Erasmus, or people who have found a partner they love dearly and who wants to see the world. Some even work in the aviation industry and are suddenly constrained by fear,” Impens said.

A “Fear of Flying” course will be offered by Brussels Airlines and The Human Link at the end of March in response to demand. The program hasn’t been provided in four years, but it is now.

“The course was created back in 2006 in collaboration with Ghent University and is scientifically based. The success rate was always above 80 per cent,” Impens said. “Due to the Covid pandemic, we put the course ‘on hold’ for a while, but continued tweaking our approach. This has given us even more insight into how fear works and we are convinced that we can now counsel people with fear of flying even better.”

There are three sections to the course. Participants will first go through a therapist interview to see whether the course would be acceptable for them. The participant will then enroll in the course. Pilots from Brussels Airlines are included in the course, says Luc Michiels, a trainer and pilot for the company.

“First, participants come to Brussels Airlines in Zaventem for a full day. In the morning, a pilot first immerses you in the world of aviation – how does a plane stay in the air, what exactly is turbulence, etc,” Michiels explained. “The other half-day is spent on concrete exercises with therapists to deal in a different way with the feelings passengers have when they are anxious.”

The course will also provide participants the chance to use VR to completely immerse themselves in an aircraft’s surroundings. Impens claimed that the program’s use of technology had become crucial.

“This makes everything more realistic and ultimately also lowers the threshold,” Impens said. “They learn to make their own choices again, instead of letting fear determine these choices. By allowing them to experience that flying – without all the ‘safety devices’ they have made their own over the years – does end well after all, anxiety often subsides fairly quickly.”

The training will be taught in Dutch, but sessions in French and English may also be proposed depending on demand. According to Brussels Airlines, more than eight out of ten participants can now fly without worry after finishing the course.