Are You Afraid Of Flying?

Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges

One of the most important qualities in developing an international business is flexibility.  There is no list of things to learn that will prepare you for everything you will encounter.  Cultural differences effect every bit of business and you just do not know when and where a cross-cultural hurdle will pop up.

Today I am not going to give you a business example.  Instead I am going to share a personal experience with you.

First Trip To My Home Country With My Daughters

I was recently separated from my French husband and through some miraculous set of circumstances I had 3 months vacation time in front of me… and extra money in the bank.  My daughters had never been to my home.  The Bahamas, the place I grew up.

It was an easy decision to take my 2 daughters on an island hopping trip to show them a bit of my home country and introduce them to my cousins, aunts and uncles. They were 8and 10 years old.

We lived in France back then too and my daughters had already flown across the Atlantic to visit my brother and my parents who were living in Canada at the time.  France to Canada = big airplanes.

The island hopping expedition I planned had us flying:

• From Paris to Miami
• From Ft. Lauderdale to Marsh Harbour, Abaco, a small island in the Bahamas
• From Marsh Harbour to Nassau, another small island in the Bahamas
• From Nassau to Long Island, yet another small island in the Bahamas
• From Long Island back to Nassau
• From Nassau back to Florida

Missing The Differences

Well, I was prepared for dealing with children and :

• The heat
• The sun
• Adequate clothes
• Mosquitos
• Sand flies
• Even the cockroaches

But I never thought about the airplanes or the differences in airplanes.

I grew up in the Bahamas where it seemed that “everyone” either had a boat or a small airplane.  So I grew up travelling on small airplanes of all different sizes to go see family on another island and to go to Florida once a year for shopping. You could not buy everything on the island when I grew up. Plane trips were almost a necessity.

Airplanes were just airplanes to me.  They got you from point A to point B.  The only difference in a small aircraft is that you could see the colors of the sea more.

I forgot that flying in a small aircraft could be a different experience when all you are used to are the big ones.

Fear Of Differences

The airplane we took leaving Florida to go to Abaco was much, much smaller than the transatlantic planes.  They had one seat on either side of the central aisle.  I cannot remember how many rows there were… we might have been 20 or 30 in the plane.  I could not sit next to both of my daughters. One sat on the other side of the aisle an arm’s length away and one sat behind me.

The plane started moving on the runway.  They started crying.  The plane took off.  Then one of my daughters started screaming.  And she screamed at the top of her lungs throughout the whole flight.

It was the noise and the vibrations.  They are different in small aircraft. Luckily:

• The flight is 10 minutes up, 10 minutes across and 10 minutes down
• You hear more of the sound of the airplane inside the small aircraft so it was not quite as embarrassing on the small aircraft as it would have been on the larger airplanes.

Of course we could not get up either.  We just had to sit through it.

It seemed like a long flight… but our trip was not over.  I was meeting up with a cousin who had rented a vacaction house on the beach on Hope Town a smaller island… where cars are not allowed.  We had to go there by boat.  A “little” speedboat my cousin had rented for our vacation.  There were some waves.  The speed boat bounced hard on the sea.

Becoming Accustomed To Something Different

Guess what happened?

Yes, that’s right. Screaming again for the next half hour.

The girls got a chance to get used to the boat.  It took a few trips on calmer seas, but we went out on the boat every day for 2 weeks.  I think my daughters really got over their fear of the boat when they saw the local boys, barely teenagers, driving their outboard boats around by themselves.

So the fear of boats was gone.  But we had to leave the island and go on the next part of our trip.  And the fear of small aircraft was still very much there.

Thankfully The Path Off The Island Was Clear To Everyone

Luckily my cousin was travelling with us… with 4 kids, a big computer and lots of childrens toys.  We were 2 adults, 6 kids and lots of extra weight.  It was cheaper for us to rent our own small(er) aircraft with a pilot.

Imagine my daughters looking at the size of this airplane before getting inside it. They did not like anything smaller than the transatlantic aircraft, and this one was even smaller than the one we flew in on.

There are two things I will never forget:

• The pilot.  He was Dutch.  He was probably too young to have kids of his own.  But as a small airplane pilot he must have flown quite a few “demanding” clients around before.
• The weather.  There were only a few clouds in the sky in the direction we were headed.

The deal we made with my daughters to get them back inside a small aircraft was that the pilot would avoid all the clouds.  And the pilot made the detour around them. I am very thankful this pilot made the flight to Nassau an enjoyable experience for everyone.  It was a decisive point for my daughters in battling their fear of small airplanes.

The Fear Was Broken

We did not fly on the next leg of the trip. Instead we had a wonderful opportunity to jump on a mailboat and travel  overnight instead.  That was a pleasant adventure.

The next airplane we took was coming back from Long Island to Nassau.  This time the airplane was a little bit bigger, and by then my daughters had been able to reason with their fears and it was an easy flight.

The fear of was broken.  They were more familiar with different airplane sizes, noises and vibrations.

This story is inspired by the competition:

Win a Flip Camera in Our Travel Inspiration Competition

Summer is over so you may have a good “heart-warming” story to share with Fiveamtraveller.  If you want to share your stories to enter the competition for the Flip camera the deadline is October 14th.

I like the angle of the Fiveamtraveller blog – it is for people who have to travel… the people that get up at 5am to catch their flights.

Many people begin an international career seeing travel as fun.  The reality is often very long days that start bat 5am.   When you are over forty 18-hour work days take their toll.   I remember how lucky I felt when my telephone negotiating skills got me out of trips during weeks when I did not want to shorten my sleep.

This is the reason why Fiveamtraveller caught my eye… and @fiveamtraveller has some interesting tweets too.

Solutions For Culture Shock Barriers

I also shared this story with you because I think it illustrates a few things:

• We will not always be able to estimate or prevent the consequences differences can create.
• Sometimes when cultural issues do come up, we cannot solve the problem head on – we need to modify our actions somehow to find a way out. We need flexibility.

Although it is easy to understand a child’s fear, we forget that adults can have negative “primal” reactions in foreign situations.  It might not always be easy to label these negative reactions as “fear”, but they can be very similar.  And solutions might be similar.

There is a parallel between this story and many cases of difficulties that arise from cross-cultural shock, when people react to what is foreign to them.  This story illustrates that:

• You need to give people time to become accustomed to something that is foreign to them
• You can usually find a solution if there is a clear path everyone can see

Flexibility helps you to find the right solution because sometimes you really need to look for the path that will get you beyond the cross-cultural hurdle.

• What stories can you share about being forced to find a solution to the fear of what is foreign?
• What examples do you have of using flexibility in your approach to get beyond cross-cultural differences?
• What heart-warming travel stories with cultural differences do you have to share?

Brush up your international skills…
Read more on Cross-Cultural Communication Challenges:

• How Cultural Differences Impact International Social Media
• Avoid Email In Cross-Cultural Conversations
• Cultural Differences In Testimonials
• Different Cultures Do Things Differently
• Small Businesses Learn From Intercultural Communication Difficulties To Grow Their International Business
• Take Time To Communicate Effectively With Different Cultures
• The Challenge Of Cultural Filters

Use these skills in your international strategies on the…
Get International Clients International Sales Road Map:

Step 5 – Connect With Your International Markets Connect… • With culture customized content • With trust and empathy • With strong cross-cultural communication

Tagged as: cross cultural differences, cross-cultural challenges, culture shock, fear, flying, foreign, travel

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