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Flying Has Lost Its Appeal For Now By- Melvin Durai Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

You've got to feel sorry for America's airline industry. People are so reluctant to fly. They'd rather drive across the country than take a chance on a plane. Driving takes a lot longer than flying, but when was the last time someone hijacked a car and crashed it into a skyscraper?

Flying just doesn't seem an ideal way to travel anymore, especially when there are so many attractive alternatives, such as running, walking and crawling. Anyone interested in traveling by rickshaw? I am.

Even before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, a small percentage of Americans were averse to flying and not just because of airline food. Flying, to them, is unnatural and strange. Having one's head in the clouds is for the birds -- and certain politicians. Not ordinary humans.

Flying can be scary. If something goes wrong, if the pilot loses control of the plane, there's only one thing left for you to do: pray.

"Oh God, please make this plane land safely. If you do this one thing for me, I promise I'll never ask you for anything again, not even a new car, new TV or new mother-in-law."

The strange man sitting next to you has ignored you the entire flight, has been muttering something to himself, yet in this moment of need, you ask him to say a prayer to his God, just in case yours isn't paying attention.

Thankfully, few people have to face such desperate situations. The chances of a plane crashing are extremely slim. It would be like India losing to Sri Lanka in cricket.

But your worries tend to increase when you consider the possibility of hijackers taking over the flight. It's scary enough being thousands of feet up in the sky, hoping that the pilots aren't busy playing poker. The last thing you need is a bunch of "high-jackasses" taking control.

Before Sept. 11, passengers on a hijacked plane could remain calm and be reasonably certain they'd survive the ordeal. But now such passengers must worry that the hijackers are turning the plane into a missile. Hijackers are crazy enough without being suicidal, too.

As an Indian, I have another reason for being reluctant to fly: the chance, perhaps even the likelihood, that I could be mistaken for a hijacker and pulled off a plane so fast, I wouldn't even have time to eat the peanuts.

The recent terrorist attacks have unfortunately turned people who look Middle Eastern or South Asian into potential suspects. Middle Eastern, because the hijackers in the terrorist attacks were from that region; South Asian, because some people are too darn lazy to learn the difference.

It's easier to lump all Arabs, all Muslims, all South Asians together -- and discourage us all from flying. "Hey, can't all you folks travel by bus? Isn't that how you traveled around in your homeland, before you came to America, the land of the free?"

Ashraf Khan, a 32-year-old San Antonio businessman, discovered this prejudice first hand when he boarded a Delta Air Lines flight to Dallas.

One moment he was settling into a first-class seat, the next moment he was a second-class citizen. The pilot asked him to leave. "He told me that he's not safe with me flying to Dallas," the Pakistani native told The Los Angeles Times.

How embarrassing.

No, not for Khan. For Delta Air Lines and for America.

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