Grounded baby-boomers face fear of flying

By Rick Wilking

DENVER (Reuters Life!) - One of them flies regularly and hates every minute. Another hasn't flown since 1976. Then there's Linda who has never been on an airplane.

Meet the participants of Flight Without Fear, one of a growing number of courses offered by airlines and private groups finding rising demand from grounded baby-boomers.

This eight-week course held twice a year in Denver started about 25 years ago and takes up to 20 people a time, organized by the Colorado chapter of the nonprofit group The Ninety-Nines, an international organization of women pilots.

Donna Miller, a pilot and chairwoman of the program, said the number of similar courses appeared to be on the rise although there was no data to back this up -- but so was the age of people seeking to overcome their fear of flying. The average age on a course that ended this month was about 55.

"The world is getting smaller with more people traveling for work and for leisure," Miller told Reuters.

"With the population aging we are getting more and more retirees who have money and want to travel."

Take Linda Murrah, 64, a church administrator, who had never been on a plane before and was a successful graduate from the latest course.

She said her father had instilled a fear of flying in her when she was child, telling her she could be harmed, and this denial of getting on a plane kept building as she got older.