Phil Brown: Pandemic’s curb on air travel has been a blessing for those with a fear of flying

I’m back in the air, but for someone whose favourite part of travel is landing, I’m not sure I’ve missed being on planes, writes Phil Brown.

I’m travelling again, it’s great. Or is it? Wait a minute … I don’t even like travelling! I like arriving. I enjoy getting home. Travelling, not so much.

I remember a few years back when I was leaving for a European holiday someone in the office said to me … “Are you looking forward to your trip?”

“I can’t wait to get home,” I said.

Covid was a blessing for nervous flyers. Picture: iStock

Now that things are loosening up though I’m getting out and about. Which is a challenge. Secretly I quite enjoyed the months of lockdown when there was no pressure to even go beyond our suburb. Days were long and uninteresting, just the way I like them.

Besides, the last trip I had before COVID-19 hit was a tad traumatic. I had been invited to Canberra by the National Gallery of Australia, bless them, to see a major Picasso exhibition which featured, among some amazing works, the Queensland Art Gallery’s priceless La Belle Hollandaise, one of Pablo Picasso’s early masterpieces.

I left Brisbane en route to Canberra around 8ish and when we got close I looked out the window and we seemed to be circling the airport rather than landing. This went on for a while and being a nervous traveller (my book of travel stories is entitled Travels with My Angst) I waited for some sort of consolation from the folks upfront. Soon they announced that the airfield was on fire (this was the time of the bushfires in early 2020) and that we would be flying back to Brisbane. Oh well. We did that and then circled Brisbane and for some reason couldn’t land there either.

By this stage I had been in the brace position for around an hour.

So we flew on to Sydney and managed to land there around lunchtime. If I could have I would have kissed the tarmac.

The folks in Canberra rang me and said they could get me on a Murrays bus to the capital in two hours time. I got on the bus and eventually made it to Canberra around 6pm. The trip had taken all day. I have never been so glad to be anywhere.

Who else is happiest when we’ve landed? Picture: iStock

Not long after that the pandemic gained momentum and my angst ridden travelling ceased. Hallelujah.

We did make a couple of local forays during that time to places we had never been before … Stanthorpe (can you believe that?) and Tangalooma which was terrific. Then when things loosened up further I thought I’d better get back in the swing. I started with a long slow trip to Longreach by train on The Spirit of the Outback and that was terrific. I flew back and it had been more than a year since I’d been on a plane so I was a bit nervous … even more nervous when I realised it had propellers. But It was fine. A couple of weeks later I went to Melbourne to see an exhibition of Australian Impression at the National Gallery of Victoria.

I felt like a real jet setter! I have a trip to Sydney coming up and we are going to Melbourne again in late June depending on lockdowns and we have a trip booked to Cairns in August. So I’m back on the horse but I’m still not the best flyer in the world. I love landing however and when I arrive somewhere I am the happiest bloke in the airport. Because I have survived. Again.