FRANKFURT, GERMANY — Imagine watching the world move 30,000 feet below while you sit in naked comfort aboard a commercial jet. What would it feel like to gaze down upon clouds while sitting bare in your airplane seat and enjoying a frosty cocktail? What rules of social etiquette would be involved with being a flight attendant aboard a nudist holiday flight? These questions won’t be purely rhetorical if they sign up for a trip via OssiUrlaub.de.
The travel agency has decided to try something innovative in the hopes of luring travelers from eastern Germany’s Erfurt to the Usedom resort along the Baltic Sea on July 5th, 2008.
While managing director Enrico Hess admits that the 499 euro ($736 US) price tag is “expensive,” he assured Reuters that “it’s because the plane’s very small. There’s no real reason why a flight in which one flies naked should be more expensive than any other.”
Unless it includes the price of additional blankets, of course.
What is known as naturism or nudism in the United States has been called “free body culture,” or “FKK” in Germany. Although it was banned by the Nazis, its popularity returned after WWII, especially in eastern Germany, where FKK hotels, restaurants, and shops allow nudity.
In Hess’ opinion, it’s not a large jump in logic to assume that those who’ve embraced an FKK lifestyle might like to travel nude, as well.
Nobody will board the plane naked, of course, and the crew will remain dressed for the flight’s duration. But once aboard, the 55 paying customers can get as naked as they want to be – so long as they put everything back on before they deplane.
Given how narrow airplane aisles and bathroom stalls are, the process of undressing and re-attiring may be more interesting and interactive than any other moments during the trip.
“I wish I could say we thought of it ourselves, but the idea came from a customer,” Hess observes.
Although happy to book the flight and cash the checks, Hess is concerned that his company’s new idea might be misunderstood. “I don’t want people to get the wrong idea,” he insists. “It’s not that we’re starting a swinger club in mid-air or something like that. We’re a perfectly normal holiday company.”
That just happens to offer one naked holiday flight.
