Hypnosis for Fear of Flying (Aviophobia)

What fear of flying really costs

The trips given up. A wedding, a birth, a funeral, a family holiday. It's often that giving-up which finally prompts someone to do something. Work, too: jobs turned down, trips dodged with excuses you end up finding questionable yourself. And the weeks before: the flight lasts a few hours, the dread sometimes occupies two months. That's the most expensive part, and the least visible. Sleep, finally, in the nights beforehand.

On sedatives and alcohol before a flight

It's a very widespread practice, and it deserves to be described precisely.

Medication is only taken on prescription, with the advice of the doctor who looks after you. Don't take someone else's tablet, and never combine it with alcohol.

Sedatives relieve anxiety for the duration of the flight, but they are not designed to make a phobia disappear over time. Some research suggests they may even limit the lasting benefit of exposure work: in a trial involving twenty-eight people, those who had taken an anxiolytic before a first flight felt more anxious on the next one. Other work doesn't find that effect, and nothing is settled.

The hypothesis is simple: you credit the tablet rather than yourself, and the next flight looks harder without it. If medication has been prescribed for you, that is between you and the person who prescribed it: stop nothing and change nothing without talking to them.

What exists besides hypnosis

Fear-of-flying courses. They combine technical explanations from a pilot, preparation with a psychologist, and a practical situation. It's the most complete format, and it remains largely unknown. But beware of one misconception: an actual accompanied flight is rare. Most courses end in a simulator.

In France, the Centre de Traitement de la Peur de l'Avion offers a day with an instructor pilot and a simulator; Fofly is the only one to include a real flight out of Paris. In Quebec, no airline or public service offers the equivalent: there is a programme in Quebec City pairing a psychologist with a flight instructor on a simulator, and simulator sessions in several cities run by an instructor, which is not the same thing as psychological support. On the English-speaking side, two British programmes really do include a flight: British Airways' Flying with Confidence and easyJet's Fearless Flyer.

Two cautions. The success rates these organisations advertise are marketing claims, with no published method: don't make them a criterion. And the course long associated with Virgin Atlantic no longer exists in that form.

Exposure therapy, the reference approach for specific phobias. It is the best documented approach in the field: a meta-analysis of 85 studies concludes that it is the treatment of choice, and that a single well-run session already achieves a great deal.

Virtual reality exposure, which gives results equivalent to real exposure for fear of flying: equivalent, not superior. A recent study even shows that a simple video does as well: it's the exposure that works, not the immersion.

A psychologist, after a traumatic event.

And understanding the aircraft. Knowing what the landing gear and the flaps sound like, why the engines change note after take-off. On the figures, it's better to be precise than reassuring: per distance travelled, flying really is the safest mode of transport, and the International Air Transport Association counts one fatal accident per 5.6 million flights over 2021-2025, against one per 3.5 million ten years earlier. Some years are marked by heavily covered accidents, and it's their rarity that makes them so visible.

On turbulence, the answer has two halves, and both matter. It shakes the cabin; it does not put the structure at risk: certification requires an aircraft to withstand 150 % of the maximum load expected in service, and during the 787 test the wings were flexed more than seven metres without breaking. In May 2024, a Singapore Airlines flight went through one of the most violent turbulence events ever recorded on an airliner; the official report lists the damage: broken ceiling panels, punctured overhead bins, cracked sidewall panels. Interior fittings. The aircraft landed normally.

That flight did, however, leave dozens seriously injured, and that is where the real risk lies. It has a disarmingly simple remedy: the seat belt. In the United States, among the passengers seriously injured in turbulence studied by the safety board over ten years, only one was wearing a seat belt. Transport Canada puts it plainly: keep it fastened for the whole flight, even when the sign is off.

This information helps some people. Not everyone. And if it does nothing for you, reread the first section: your fear is probably about something else.

Hypnosis is added to that list.

An example: Léa's case

*An illustrative example, built from situations we meet often. It is not one real person's account.*

Léa (name changed), a French woman living in Quebec, was due to marry in France the following summer. She came to us in the spring, seriously considering moving her wedding to Canada so as not to have to fly. It wasn't a whim: she had already started scouting possible venues near Montreal, and working out how she would tell the family back in France that the wedding was moving to another continent.

The first conversation showed that her fear was less about a crash than about the idea of panicking with no way to get off. The work focused on the sensations, and on the stages of the flight taken separately. She built a calm anchor tied to a very personal gesture, stroking her cat, which she could call up mentally at every bump.

This case describes one possible path. It predicts nobody's. The pace and the results vary from one person to another, and no support can guarantee an outcome.

Book an appointment

Tell us the date of your flight: on this subject, it organises everything else. If your situation calls first for a psychologist or a doctor, we'll say so too, and it is never a refusal. Ask us a question or book an appointment. And if your departure is close, know that everything happens in the imagination: there is nothing real to face in order to begin, which is exactly what makes it possible even when the thought of the airport is still unbearable.

A video consultation therefore works perfectly well, and saves losing a day travelling. Our practitioners see people in Montreal, Sherbrooke, Gatineau, Paris and Lille, and by video wherever you are in the world.