Can you imagine getting onto an airplane naked and then comfortably taking your seat, while everyone else on the plane is nude as well? This scenario is highly unlikely, yet it is Thomas L. Friedman’s proposal for safer skies in his editorial entitled “Naked Air,” which appeared in the December 26th edition of The New York Times.
While this would be an ideal situation to eliminate people’s fears of flying, logistically there is no way that his idea for an airline named Naked Air would go over well with the public, not to mention the fact that it would break the law. Then there are sanitary as well as economic considerations that would have to be made. Taking such complications into account, ultimately, Naked Air could never become a reality.
Think about it. How comfortable would you feel being naked in public? Most people are not at ease with this concept. My friend, who is in the School of Art, was telling me earlier today how nude models are going to be used in her art class. Her professor already warned her class that if any of the students are uncomfortable that they should go talk to him about their concerns. Our culture is not used to dealing with nudity on a casual basis. People in our culture have not run around naked since prehistoric times; and maybe I am being presumptuous, but I do not think we are about to start doing so now.
Compounding our uneasiness about nudity in public is that it is illegal. Instituting Naked Air would require revising many laws to make nakedness legal. Perhaps such revision would be worthwhile. After all, Naked Air would have its passengers flying nude for the sole purpose of preventing people from carrying weapons and explosives. However, revising the law would take a long time, and legislators have other concerns they are going to address before they discuss people flying nude.
In addition to nudity itself being illegal, inspection of passengers’ orifices for weapons would be an invasion of privacy. If anyone were to hijack a plane, he or she would find a way. Look at Thomas Reid. He successfully passed through security with explosives in his shoes. With his situation in mind, orifices would have to be inspected to ensure the safety of the passengers, or else Naked Air would not be serving its full purpose.
Aside from the problem of orifice inspection, another problem arises: how would the seats on Naked Air be kept sanitary if everyone was flying naked? Perhaps the doctor’s office method would be employed, in which a layer of paper was placed over the seat to prevent people from sharing the joy of disease. Maybe each passenger would sit in a pool of an antibacterial gelatinous substance, but that would be highly unlikely.
Suppose that people did have to sit in an antibacterial substance while flying Naked Air. This would undoubtedly cause people to shiver, which would then require that the planes be intensely heated. Cold passengers would mean installing more elaborate heating systems on planes. This renovation would cost large sums of money that would probably not be allotted for such a purpose, again decreasing the likelihood of passengers flying au natural.
While a lot of money would have to be put into Naked Air, how would the airline stay in business? It would not. People would opt to fly airlines that did not prohibit them from wearing clothing, consequently putting Naked Air out of business. In addition, what would happen to the clothing while people were on the flight? How would they retrieve their clothing so as to walk off the plane fully clad? Naked Air jets would need many dressing rooms to accommodate these concerns, which would cause more money to be invested into building planes with dressing rooms. This would not be efficient.
Additionally, people would not be able to control themselves. Upon seeing so many people naked, who would be able to resist the temptation for intercourse? Most people fly with their spouses, and sitting next to each other naked, they would not be able to control their sexual urges. “If I could have sex on a plane, I would,” professed a freshman at Washington University, who preferred to remain anonymous. Can you imagine the pilot getting on the loudspeaker and announcing, “We are currently having sexual-I mean technical-difficulties. Please keep your seatbelts fastened.” If many were having sex on the plane, this would cause some serious turbulence, and no one likes a turbulent flight.
There are too many reasons why Naked Air would be unsuccessful. While the idea is a good one and would minimize the number of people who would attempt to wreak havoc in the skies, there are too many complications that would prevent Naked Air from ever taking off.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 22nd, 2002 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Opinions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.