Alarm and distress over flying may be the main casualties of Thursday鈥檚 alleged terror plot to blow up more than 10 passenger planes, experts say.
Despite terrible fatalities in the London and Madrid train attacks, which between them killed almost 250 people, fear of airline terrorism strikes deepest, say psychologists. And one of the reasons is the indelible memory of the attacks which demolished New York鈥檚 World Trade Center on 11 September 2001.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not only that the planes were hijacked, but that the passenger planes themselves were used as weapons, something people had never thought of before,鈥� says Elie Godsi, a clinical psychologist based in Nottingham, UK.
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So even though the alleged UK plot to down airliners appears to have been foiled, it still represents a victory of sorts for terrorism because of the resulting fear and mayhem.
鈥淲henever people fly now in the post-9/11 world, it鈥檚 obvious that anything suspicious to do with airline travel will be disproportionately stressful,鈥� says Godsi.
Chance of escape
Another factor making airline-related terror so potent is that air travellers lack control over their destiny in a way that does not affect terrestrial transport.
鈥淲hen people fly, they are totally helpless. Once you鈥檙e on the plane, you鈥檙e on, and there鈥檚 nothing more you can do if there鈥檚 a problem,鈥� says Godsi. In contrast, escape from a train, bus or boat incident might be possible.
Many people have an innate nervousness about flying, anyway, she says 鈥� an anxiety compounded by the routine stress of holiday travel.
It is easy to see how these existing anxieties provide a rich base on which to escalate fear, irrespective of whether an attack really materialises, says Lesley Perman-Kerr, a psychologist based in St Albans, UK.
鈥淚n terms of fear generated, it doesn鈥檛 matter whether the threat is real or imaginary,鈥� says Perman-Kerr. 鈥淭he 聭what-if鈥� factor would be just as powerful in our imagination,鈥� she says.
In some respects, Perman-Kerr adds, people sometimes deal better with a real threat provided they can manage their way through it safely. 鈥淚f there鈥檚 something real going on, you take care and deal with it,鈥� she says. 鈥淚f it鈥檚 in the imagination, it tends to spiral into even worse terror in the mind.鈥�
Economic effects
On those terms, says Perman-Kerr, the current alert could be counted a success in terrorist terms, even though any plot appears to have been thwarted. 鈥淣othing has to happen, because the fear in people changes their behaviour and their activities, hitting the economy at the same time.鈥�
Godsi agrees. 鈥淥ne of the worst things you can do to people is impose uncertainty, and uncertainty with an intangible threat is worse still,鈥� he says.
Yet ironically, terrorism accounts for a tiny number of deaths compared with other causes such as road accidents, deaths from drug abuse or heart attacks and strokes. 鈥淚t鈥檚 disproportionate in its impact because no one knows when it will strike, and typically it happens when people are going about their daily business.鈥�
As to the stress experienced by the thousands of travellers who have had their journeys disrupted, Godsi says they are likely to cope with it and accept it provided they are given adequate explanations for the measures introduced. 鈥淚f people understand the reasons, they鈥檙e usually happier, even if they suffer inconvenience as a result,鈥� she says.
