I’m not averse to flying. I dislike the scowling security checks and inefficient bureaucracies at the airports much more than I’m afraid of turbulence or the potential for catastrophic mishaps. But the Gulf War has made me nervous over something else: the fear of not flying.

Sometimes, a plane’s the only way to get where you have to go. My concern isn’t just about delays. Like aerophobia, it’s an almost irrational terror but not of what might happen on the plane; rather it’s about not getting on it at all, that the trip won’t happen because of some intervening event out of my control. Why even try to fly then?

© Bloomberg