Our concerns around using diazepam in patient who are nervous about flying are as follows:

• Diazepam is a sedative. This means, the medication makes you sleepy and more relaxed. If there were to be an emergency during the flight, this could impair your ability to concentrate, follow instructions or react to the situation. This could seriously affect the safety of you and the people around you.
• Sedative drugs can make you fall asleep, however, when you sleep it is an unnatural non-REM sleep. This means, your movements during sleep are reduced and this can place you at an increased risk of developing blood clots (DVT). These blood clots are very dangerous and can even prove fatal. This risk further increases if your flight is over 4 hours long.
• Although most people respond to benzodiazepines like Diazepam with sedation, a small proportion experience the opposite effect and can become aggressive. They can also lead to disinhibition and make you behave in ways you normally wouldn't. This could also impact on your safety and the safety of your fellow passengers or could lead you to get in trouble with the law.
• National prescribing guidelines followed by doctors also don't allow the use of benzodiazepines in cases or phobia. Any doctor prescribing diazepam for a fear of flying would be taking a significant legal risk as this goes against these guidelines. Benzodiazepines are only licensed for short-term use in a crisis in generalised anxiety. If this is the problem you suffer with, you should seek proper care and support for your mental health, and it would not be advisable to go on a flight.
• In several countries, diazepam and similar drugs are illegal. They would be confiscated, and you might find yourself in trouble with the police for being in control of an illegal substance.
• Diazepam has a long half-life. This means it stays in your system for a significant time and you may fail random drug testing if you are subjected to such testing as is required in some jobs.

We appreciate that fear of flying is very real and very frightening. A lower risk approach is to tackle this properly and hopefully permanently, with a Fear of Flying course run by the airlines and we have listed a number of these below.