Mar 07 2025 2 mins 1
Flying is a source of anxiety for millions of Americans and the recent high-profile crashes have increased anxiety for some travelers.
Lincoln airport officials and others in the industry are working hard to make flying as safe as possible and ease the minds of worried travelers.
Rachel Barth is the communications director at the Lincoln Airport and she says that every year, employees and first responders go through a full scale exercise in case of an emergency. But the airport has also thought of little things like switching up the flooring in favor of a quieter option and even introducing therapy dogs to the terminals on certain days in an attempt to ease anxiety.
On January 29th, an American Airlines flight collided with a military helicopter near DC and killed 67 people. Two days later, a medical jet crashed in Philadelphia, killing 7 and injured 24 more.
Lincoln native Aaron Schutz was waiting for his bag at the Lincoln airport a week later. He doesn’t fly very often and admits that he gets anxiety when flying. The recent crashes didn’t help.
"I was nervous getting on them, just because it’s a week later and I’m like uh oh, what’s going to happen. Especially with two in one week. So I’m like way more nervous about it," Schutz said.
Denver native Savon Alexander is a more frequent flier. He flies several times a year to see his girlfriend in Lincoln. He acknowledged that the crashes created a little more anxiety for him this time around.
"I think a little bit more, just the simple fact that it could happen to anybody. Then my little brother kept saying it anytime I was gonna leave so," Alexander said.
Once on the plane, that’s where Caitlin Tabbert and her fellow flight attendants come in to try and ease passengers anxiety and make the flights as safe as possible.
“We don’t just sit there and come up with rules to come up with rules ya know. Truly if like the FAA was on board, like they are watching to see if we’re telling people to put their seats up and I know it’s only a couple of inches but if it’s a couple of inches that someone needed to get out of their seat in an evacuation, I’d rather give them and you can be uncomfortable for twenty minutes while we land," Tabbert said.
Traveling has risks no matter the method. However, flying is the safest mode of transportation according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. In 2022, 44,546 lives were lost across all modes, nearly 42,000 of those deaths resulted from car crashes.
