Mass cancellations and delays of flights in Russia: how to protect yourself and your child

The third Sunday of August in the Russian Federation is traditionally considered Air Force Day, but many Russians, alas, this year will meet this date with not kind words addressed to those who are responsible for our safety and comfort during air travel: August turned out to be hot, including delays flights, which sometimes brings not only inconvenience, but also real health problems.

With the help of aviation industry workers, we found out if there is a way to psychologically protect yourself and your child in an emergency aviation situation?

In the last month of vacation, already limited resort flights have been plagued by scheduling disruptions. At first, the passengers of the flight from Antalya to Yekaterinburg waited three days for departure: they were supposed to take off on August 12, and took off on the 15th. At the same time, the return flight of the same domestic day was waiting for departure from Yekaterinburg to Antalya. Due to two failures, the entire schedule of this carrier flew and not only in these cities: a number of flights to Egyptian resorts from Moscow and from Antalya to Zhukovsky near Moscow were canceled. Before all the passengers had time to fly to their destinations, and the RF Investigative Committee announced the initiation of a criminal case against the airline on the fact of “improper provision of services”, as another domestic carrier distinguished itself by delaying the flight from Moscow to Antalya for more than 8 hours, as a result which 500 passengers, including those with small children, instead of the beach, sat and lay in the capital’s airport. At the time of this writing, no light at the end of the tunnel was yet to be foreseen, but conflicts among those departing – or rather, those who had not departed – for rest, flared up with might and main.

– My husband has exhausted me even worse than this delay, – Larisa from Moscow complains, barely persuading her husband for this expensive week in Kemer at the end of August. – Vova did not want to go, but I convinced him that it was for the sake of the child. After all, the sea-sun is a reserve of health. As a result, we have already spent one day out of 7 at Sheremetyevo.

According to Larisa, their 12-year-old son Misha is still behaving normally, but other children only add stress to their parents. One teenage girl, having phoned some friends, tried to escape from the waiting room, she was caught by border guards. And children of preschool age are either very excited and rush about like frantic, or, conversely, they sob. And excited parents can not cope with them. Some adults and themselves have attacks of chronic sores against the background of stress.

– Not only Muscovites are here, but also those who, for the sake of this flight, still got to the capital, – says Larisa. – One girl was so nervous that she began to choke. She has had asthma since childhood. And in Antalya, she had some important meeting scheduled, which she did not get to. My friend has been living in the USA for a long time, so they have special aviation psychologists there. They help people who find themselves in emergency aviation situations so that they do not develop aerophobia. And all airlines pay for this so as not to lose customers. And then if everyone stops flying, they will go bankrupt.

However, Russians are among those who nevertheless, albeit belatedly, reached the rest point or home, exhaling, begin to feel sorry for the airline.

“It is clear that the airline’s planes broke down due to sanctions for spare parts and repairs, and not through their fault,” says the passenger of the most unlucky flight, who had been waiting for departure to the EKB in Antalya for three days. And now they are on trial. And so you can’t get plane tickets, the prices are sky high, and now there’s one less wings.

I am interested in the workers of the aviation industry, do they have specialized psychologists? And are there any instructions at all in case of an unforeseen delay in departure. The first thing that Russian pilots with great experience remember in response is “unlucky August”. It turns out that the month in which civil aviation workers have been honored for 90 years now is considered bad by pilots, since it is generous in the passenger air fleet every year for emergencies.

“The omen arose back in the Soviet Union,” recalls 63-year-old Vasily Antonov, the ex-commander of the crew of a passenger aircraft, who began flying back in the mid-80s of the last century. – We didn’t like August, we unofficially considered it a very bad month for aviation. But some were so afraid of him that if they could not take a vacation, then they had to work with a psychologist. And August almost every year confirmed its unpleasant reputation.

– So, there is a psychologist after all?

– Yes, but only for flight personnel. And flight psychologists are suitable for passengers only in terms of the ability to use delays through no fault of your own for your own good. We have one flight attendant who flew to Murmansk, during the delays due to bad weather, learned French from a self-instruction manual.

“A delay due to circumstances beyond your control is not just a waste of time that causes problems, but also a “window” in the schedule that allows you to do something that you keep putting off because of time pressure,” confirms psychologist Vadim Krasov, who specializes in the so-called “internal time management”. – The message “turn defeat into an advantage” will translate the negative into positive and allow you to stop being angry and start creating. You will stop suffering and angry that you are wasting time through someone else’s fault, and remember the magic word ZATO. But what you will do ZATO for yourself and your child should be with you in case of an unforeseen long wait. When will you still be able to play a leisurely intellectual game with your child – cities, erudite, or any other game that requires personal communication, and not a gadget. When else do you read aloud to him a real paper, not a computer book. And for yourself, always take with you on a long journey something important, but not urgent, that everyone has: an unfinished book, an unfinished manuscript, an untied scarf, an unfinished verse, and even a heart-to-heart conversation that has not yet begun with a loved one.