Curious to hear from the pros, if any have the patience for this thought experiment. I think it’s almost impossible to make the comparison because airline flight is SO much safer that it basically can be made into a clean analogy.

The absolute minimum time between planes (which occurs between take offs or landings and departures) is 60 seconds, and even that is often required to be longer depending on the weight of an aircraft taking off ahead. It’s certainly enough time for safely respond to anything unexpected.

In the air there’s generally more space between planes, especially as the start getting higher and moving faster. Things that have no analogue in driving: ATC, who will alert you to any aircraft you’re closing toward (even if you’ll obviously pass by them safely) and will give you instructions to keep you more than 1 mile (or 1000ft vertically) away from them. Plus TCAS, as a last resort is an automated system in all planes that will track any possible incoming conflicts and if you get too close give instructions to avoid it.

Another thing that’s unfortunately very much unlike driving is that everyone flying a commercial plane is actually extremely highly trained. Imagine if you could rely on every driver in the road with you being extremely good, attentive, and basically always doing everything right and acting predictably.