Photograph by Nate Hovee/Getty Images
I arrived at the airport in Atlanta jet-lagged and sleep deprived after a long flight from Paris. I was living in Rhode Island at the time and had to catch a connecting flight home. During the layover, I called my parents from a pay phone. Through the large glass window, I could see an ominous-looking thunderstorm to the west, where they lived.
“I can’t talk but a minute,” my dad said. “There’s a heavy storm blowing up. We’ll need to unplug the phones.”
By the time we boarded, that same thunderstorm was moving into Atlanta. I was already a nervous flier, and this wasn’t helping matters. I’m one of those people who stopped swimming in the ocean after Jaws, and when it came to plane crashes, I’d probably seen one too many disaster movies. I buckled into my seat, staring with trepidation out the window, when a cheerful woman sat down beside me and started to chat me up. “Are you nervous about flying?” she asked.
I gestured toward the dark skies. “In this, yes,” I replied.
“Well, you’re in luck,” she said in a voice brimming with confidence. “I’m a psychologist who specializes in treating people who are afraid to fly. What is it about flying that makes you nervous?”
Oh, wonderful, I said to myself. I get on an airplane, and someone wants to give me a therapy session. I pointed out the window again. “Going up in the middle of this storm doesn’t exactly make me feel confident,” I said.
As we taxied to the runway, she was busy giving me a litany of relaxation techniques. But I already had my own routine: During takeoff, I always put on my headphones and listened to the Allman Brothers Band’s “Statesboro Blues.” The song’s intro mimics a jet’s liftoff, with the full band usually kicking in just as the plane accelerates toward the sky. Plus, if I was going to die in a crash, at least I’d die listening to one of my favorite songs.
By now, the airport was in the heart of the storm. Sheets of rain pelted the jet. I wondered how long our delay would be. Instead, to my slight alarm, we began to roll down the runway. There is an inherent trust when you board an airplane, and this was stretching that trust to the limit. It was the bumpiest takeoff I’ve ever experienced. The plane pitched up and down in the air; we were jolted to the left, then back to the right. It felt like I was riding inside a steel ball as it ricocheted through a pinball machine.
I closed my eyes, lost in Duane Allman’s slide guitar. I glanced to my right. The psychologist who specialized in treating people afraid to fly? Her hands had a white-knuckle grip on the arm rests, and her face was pained, as if she were having a panic attack.
She didn’t say a word the rest of the flight. But once we cleared the storm, she quickly downed two stiff cocktails.
I usually fly Delta. It’s part hometown loyalty, but I also miss it when I fly on other airlines. It’s impossible to think of Atlanta without thinking of the airport and Delta Air Lines. Everything here revolves around Hartsfield-Jackson. The world’s busiest airport saw a whopping 108 million passengers last year, with Delta handling 70 percent of the flights in and out. The old joke is that after you pass away, you have to make a stop in Atlanta to connect to your final destination.
In this issue, we explore the century-long symbiotic relationship between Delta and Hartsfield-Jackson with a historical timeline (courtesy of the Atlanta History Center), offer travel tips from Clark Howard, and take readers behind the scenes for a day in the life at the airport.
Over the years, my fear of flying has eased. After I moved back to Atlanta, I lived in College Park—close enough to the runways that I could see planes arriving and departing whenever I walked outside. One afternoon, I realized I had watched thousands of those arrivals and departures over the years, and not once did I ever watch one of those planes crash.
I carry that thought with me whenever I fly. It even works sometimes. But I still listen to “Statesboro Blues” with every takeoff—just to be on the safe side.
This article appears in our October 2025 issue.
