There are places in the world where your alternative to flying is not simply as bad, but worse. Consider the risks of using long distance buses in some countries against the risks of flying. For all the problems in recent years in Indonesia I'd rather a flight than most of the ferries plying between islands.
In an ideal world these are risks we should not have to be weighing but in reality it's part of the risk you take every time you put one foot in front of the other.
As a society we're not good at understanding and evaluating risk.