I had the opportunity to assist on an AWPA/Qantas Fear of Flying course many decades ago. It was a brilliantly run course and went into a lot of depth about managing fear and explaining what was going on.
Any way, I was assigned to a nervous participant. I asked her to do the calming exercises she was taught while we were taxiing out on a B747. She had a death grip on my arm and her eyes were clenched shut. (I am not sure if the calming exercises were really working well). A moment later we were airborne and above the grey gloom. I said very quietly "the sun's out up here". She looked and exclaimed "oh wow! Was that it?"
Yep, it was. She then relaxed and trusted the processes a bit more for the landing and return flight.
A very successful day.
I have dealt with quite a few nervous flyers at work too. All present differently. Criers are relatively easy - as in it's obvious. The silent non com can be trickier but I tend to use non emotive words anyway but the aggressive snappy guys are the hardest to figure out.
Quite often they'll project their fear onto their partner - as in "my wife's a nervous flyer" and what you see is him death gripping the chair, frozen and looking out while she's chilling, reading a magazine.