The Real Fear of Flying

At any given time, thousands of corporate executives are in the skies between U.S. cities. The United States has an estimated 6.2 million frequent business travelers, embarking on an average of 23 business trips per year. And even before the events of Sept. 11, many of those regular fliers weren't exactly looking forward to their next airport-bound taxi ride.

In recent months, many of the most dedicated of these frequent fliers have-like everyone else-had second thoughts about climbing aboard an airplane. But while the specter of terrorism looms for many, the risk of falling victim to a violent act is small compared to the true physical and psychological maladies that affect regular travelers. As experts continue to investigate the toll that such travel takes on employees, many feel that it is critical for employers to establish policies and procedures that allow employees to do their jobs while maintaining their well-being.

Peter Degnan, a physician at Exeter Hospital's Equinox Center for Workplace Wellness and Integrated Medicine in Portsmouth, N.H., believes that the risks to the health of frequent travelers are real and varied. According to Degnan, frequent travelers have a potentially greater risk of deep vein thrombosis, or blood clots in the legs. In fact, several studies have shown a link between frequent travel and a risk of developing blood clots, especially for those taking flights lasting over three hours. Findings indicate that dehydration and smoking significantly contribute to this risk.

Degnan adds that naturally occurring cosmic radiation that increases at high altitudes and can pass through the structure of an airplane, has been receiving more attention lately. He warns that frequent travel may expose an employee to unhealthy levels of this radiation.

In fact, says Robert Barish, travelers who fly more than 75,000 miles a year should be declared "radiation workers." Barish, a New York-based health and medical physicist and author of The Invisible Passenger: Radiation Risks for People Who Fly, says, "While it's not easy to make a comparison, you could say that you get the equivalent of a chest X-ray every four hours of flight. If you make a round-trip from New York to L.A., that's the equivalent of 2.5 X-rays."

According to Barish, under normal conditions, the federal regulatory limit for the average individual's exposure to radiation levels from conventional sources, such as medical facilities and industrial plants, is set at 100 millirem (mrem) annually. Yet the average frequent traveler flying more than 75,000 miles annually will likely be exposed to more than that. In fact, one who takes to the skies more than 150,000 miles per year may receive more than twice that recommended limit. Because it is a requirement that U.S. workers who are exposed to radiation through their place of employment knowingly and willingly accept the accompanying risks, airplane pilots and flight attendants were reclassified as radiation workers by the Federal Aviation Administration in 1990. A 1996 paper published in the American Journal of Epidemiology cited higher rates of a number of cancers among a group of 2,740 Air Canada pilots studied.

Barish explains that the level of radiation to which business travelers are exposed varies depending on latitude and altitude; exposure doubles every 6,000 feet, and radiation levels are lowest near the equator. In addition, travelers need to be aware of periods of solar flares. These outbursts of high-energy radiation occur in clusters every 11 years, and may elevate the levels of radiation exposure to more than 30 times normal levels. The most recent peak of the cycle took place in late 2001.

"If you took a 6 p.m. flight from Newark to London on Nov. 5, 2001, you hit a peak period, and that flight may have exposed you to levels of radiation equal to 20 to 30 flights," Barish says. "Wouldn't you have wanted someone to tell you that so that you could make an informed decision about whether or not to fly?"

Along with the physical toll frequent flying can take on your employees, their psyches may be taking a beating. A 1997 clinical study compared the health claims of 4,700 managers and professional workers of the World Bank who engaged in international travel to 6,000 of the bank's employees who did not travel. The findings showed that travelers accounted for three times more claims for treatment of anxiety, stress, and other psychological issues than their stationary counterparts.

Mitchell Lee Marks isn't surprised by these statistics. The San Francisco-based organizational psychologist consults with a number of companies on the issues of frequent travel and change. He believes that organizations that don't find ways to help employees deal with the demands of frequent travel are destined for low productivity, poor performance, staff burnout, and, ultimately, an increase in turnover.

"People are not machines," counsels Marks. "There comes a breaking point. It's either going to be physical well-being, interpersonal relations, or performance."

The tense state of the traveling environment may also contribute to the stress of being on the road and, in some cases, may actually present a physical threat. According to the 1999 OAG Business Travel Lifestyle Survey, nearly 40 percent of business travelers from around the globe witnessed verbal or physical abuse while traveling in the 12 months preceding the survey. Two percent of those surveyed had their travel plans disrupted because of "air rage" incidents.

Marks believes that these findings are easy to explain. "It's the 'kick the dog' syndrome. If you've had a bad trip or you're tired and stressed out, who are you going to lash out at? Probably the flight attendants. In addition, we all know that one way to manage stress is to control it. But if you're observing the situation, you're belted into your seat and you can't just get up and leave."

He adds that frequent travelers may have trouble developing stable relationships at home. Spouses or loved ones may not want the traveler to spend so much time away from home, so the employee may feel conflicted about loyalty to family vs. loyalty to the job. This can lead to extreme and distracting feelings of guilt or anxiety for the traveler.

If you think that weary, stressed-out road warriors need to just toughen up, Michael Smolensky warns that these employees may actually be putting your business at risk and you can't afford to ignore them.

"I've seen a lot of bad decisions made by jet-lagged employees who weren't alert, where the company almost got sold down the line when people made decisions when they weren't capable of doing it," warns Smolensky, a professor of environmental physiology at the University of Texas, Houston School of Public Health and co-author of The Body Clock Guide to Better Health.

He has found that the impact of interrupted sleep cycles and jet lag can be profound. Stressed-out travelers whose sleep patterns are interrupted can actually have significantly impaired decision-making capabilities. Since many of these frequent fliers are traveling across several time zones to take part in high-level meetings and make important decisions, this combination can be a cocktail for serious problems.

Still, most companies can't ignore the need for face-time with far-off customers. As owner and president of three companies-Vortex Technologies, Basic Power Engineering and Manufacturing, and OptiFuse, all based in El Cajon, Calif.-James Kalb and his team rack up major frequent-flier miles in their treks throughout the United States and Asia. He encourages his employees to pack as many meetings as possible into each trip.

"Get in and get out. Don't waste a lot of time. That's our philosophy," explains Kalb. And while the schedule is somewhat rigorous in the short term, he believes that tackling several customers at a time is much less taxing, not to mention less expensive, than making several repeat trips.

To help make the trips easier, Kalb allows employees to choose their own airlines and enroll in airline clubs to give them a more pleasant place to spend layover time. Employees also keep the frequent-flier miles they acquire during business travel and can use them toward personal vacations and other rewards.

Farmingdale, N.J.-based Dialight Corp. also allows employees to keep frequent-flier miles. The company, with offices in North Carolina, New Jersey, Mexico, and the United Kingdom as well as individual representatives in other locations, arms its employees with all of the technological tools necessary to be effective on the road, including laptops and mobile phones. All employees are issued phone cards with which they can check into the office and, of course, call home at the company's expense. Dialight also encourages employees to factor a Saturday-night stay into their plans. This helps to save the company money, but Scott Ernst, the company's HR director, also says that Dialight allows employees a day before or after the trip to take time for themselves. In addition to covering hotel and other expenses, Dialight allows the employee to spend the equivalent of the money saved on the Saturday-night-stay ticket on personal entertainment.

However you choose to handle your frequent travelers, handle them you must, say those in the know. Michael Lotito, a partner at New York-based Jackson Lewis, a national practice specializing in employment law, believes that the time is ripe for employers to adopt strategies to deal with the health issues and anxiety surrounding frequent travel or, perhaps, risk liability.

"Sept. 11," Lotito says, "has given employers an opportunity to either prove that they believe in vision statements, mission statements, and core values that say people are an important asset-or to demonstrate through action that they're only words on a piece of paper."

Lotito counsels employers to consult with their legal advisers to develop policies to deal with employees who are fearful or who may have fallen victim to a travel-related malady. If a company does not make reasonable acccommodations for an employee who is truly traumatized or affected to the point of having a medical issue-such as post-traumatic stress disorder-or to the point where he cannot perform job functions, serious legal issues and obligations under the Family and Medical Leave Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, and/or National Labor Relations Act may apply.

Still, Marks cautions, travel tolerance is an individual threshold, and it's unwise to dictate a one-size-fits-all solution, such as limiting the amount of time people travel. Instead, he says, it's important for management to develop clear and fair policies to help employees who travel frequently manage the stresses. This may include allowing employees to take a day or two off after a lengthy business trip to recoup. One of Marks' clients implemented a perk system in which frequent travelers would occasionally be surprised with a $100 gift certificate to take a guest out to dinner.

Overall, he says, it's important for managers to show empathy, pay attention to warning signs of burnout, and to ensure that their policies and allowances for frequent fliers are enforced and encouraged.