Sunday, July 20, 2025
As the skies over Asia saw more than their share of terrifying air mishaps in 2025, it will make folks wonder: Is flying still safe? Rocket attacks, two dictators and a singing protester: inside the scariest skies on Earth. A spate of recent aviation scares, including the fatal crash in June of an Air India Boeing 787 and other high-profile accidents, has alarmed travelers. These incidents are rare but have had a noticeable effect on passenger confidence – specific airlines have seen their bookings fall, and people are flying with some anxiety.
When Michael Watson, a retired British teacher and frequent flier, stepped onto an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner in early June, he had no idea that just days later, a Dreamliner operated by the same airline would crash right after taking off from Ahmedabad, India. The crash tragically claimed all but one of the 242 people on board and 19 additional lives on the ground. Dr. Watson had always been comfortable flying, so he was troubled by the news, and says now that he will not fly in a Boeing 787 at all. It made him feel uncomfortable about flying, particularly with Air India, and he would be happy to pay more to take a different airline.
The June 12 incident — the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 787 — sent a shudder through the region and beyond. It has even resulted in a visible drop in the number of bookings for Air India, as travel agents in the country reported a 30-35 per cent decline in fresh reservations. More than 20 percent of the existing reservations were also canceled in the week following the crash, and, in the week after that, one of every 10 newer reservations was called off. This surge in cancellations brings the psychological influence of aviation crashes into sharp relief for passengers, many of whom are now contemplating their airline and aircraft choices.
Anxiety is Heightening, and More People Want to Learn about Flight Fear Therapy
After the disaster, many people began to seek help for their fear of flying. Cockpit Vista, a wellness center in Bengaluru where a therapy course is available for nervous fliers, has seen a spike in inquiries after the crash, told. After the tragedy, the center, which normally gets about 10 inquiries a month, got over 100 inquiries. At the other end of the spectrum, the center has a US$500 course designed to help those who, despite clinging to a fear of flying, still feel the need to get from one side of the world to the other.
Searches for terms like “flying fear” spiked in India after the crash, according to Google Trends data, and interest has remained high in the weeks since. Some are working to overcome their fear of flying, but others are taking the disaster as a chance to try a new style of travel. Despite these fears, however, the aviation experts have continued to reassure the world that air travel is the safest means of transportation, safer even than road and rail.
2025 A Spate of High-Profile Incidents
The Air India crash followed several other major aviation accidents earlier in 2025. In December 2024, a Jeju Air flight crashed at Muan International Airport, South Korea, killing 179 people. This was in addition to a fire on an Air Busan plane heading for Hong Kong, which injured seven passengers. In June, a Batik Air jet almost skidded off the runway at the main airport in Jakarta during a storm. And the next day, a Japan Airlines flight heading from Shanghai to Tokyo faced a terrifying ordeal, plummeting 26,000 feet before landing safely.
They have brought the issue of aviation safety front and center, along with a fatal collision between an American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over Washington’s Potomac River. But despite these well-publicized cases, experts insist that air travel is still a safe way to get around, statistically speaking.
The very fact of life: Falling out of the sky in a jetliner is rare
Despite tragedies, there’s little to worry about when flying, and although the accidents have come in close succession, aviation analysts have insisted the number of incidents does not represent an anomalous year. “Air travel is still the safest form of transportation, despite the increasing number of accidents reported by the media,” said Alvin Lie, chairman of the Indonesian Air Transport Service Users Association. There are more than 100,000 commercial flights taken every day, and despite the high-profile cases, the number of people hurt is relatively small when compared to other types of transportation like road or rail travel, Lie noted.
According to the Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, there were 54 accidents in the first half of 2025, as opposed to 70 in the first six months of the previous year. Nonetheless, despite such frequent recurrences, the global accident rate in 2024 was recorded at 1.13 per one million flights, a marginal decrease when compared with the five-year average of 1.25.
The Influence of Social Media on Generating Awareness
The emergence of social media has contributed to enhancing the public’s attention to accidents in aviation. Footage and images from inside aircraft cabins, or the immediate aftermath of accidents, shot on smartphones have frequently gone viral, stoking wider public concern over flight safety. Whether or not that increased scrutiny is part of why fear behavior is rising, it does provide more evidence that we do need very strong safety rules and oversight. Indeed, these are the sort of incidents that are still “statistical outliers” in an industry with over 100,000 flights a day, observes Marco Chan, a former pilot and now an aviation lecturer.
Public Confidence in Air Travel
But for now, the future of world aviation seems relatively bright despite the fear of flying. Global passenger demand grew 5% year-over-year in May 2025, as reported by the International Air Transport Association (IATA). High-profile accidents “can spike fear of flying momentarily,” said Robert Bor, a clinical aviation psychologist, but they do little in the way of producing sustained changes in behavior. He said personal issues, like claustrophobia or not feeling in control, tend to be what lead people to fear flying, and major events usually only exacerbate the fear for a short amount of time.
They did not faze some travelers, such as Irsan Hermawan, an Indonesian businessman who has no intention of stopping flying. Hermawan, who travels by airplane often for work and to see family, said he doesn’t let such accidents affect his travel decisions. “No matter what kind of transport you take, if it’s your time, it’s your time,” he said, in a philosophy that many passengers still share.
(Source: Indian travel agencies, Cockpit Vista, Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Archives, International Air Transport Association (IATA), Robert Bor, Alvin Lie, Marco Chan)
