Nudist Flight ‘Taking Off’ in Germany

By Anastacia Mott Austin

Travel agency owner Enrico Hess doesn’t see what all of the fuss is about. "We’re a perfectly normal holiday company," he insists.

Hess has been in the news ever since his company, OssiUrlaub.de, decided to offer nudists the chance to fly naked on a special excursion flight this summer to a vacation island.

Travelers will be required to pass through security checkpoints and board the plane fully clothed for the July 5th flight from Germany to the Baltic Sea resort of Usedom. Then they may disrobe for the flight, and re-dress before disembarking. The pilot and flight attendants will remain clothed, "for safety reasons."

Hess tells reporters he got the idea from a customer who was part of the FKK, translated to mean "free body culture," with followers located primarily in East Germany. The popular practice of nudism was banned during the Nazi-era years and then experienced a resurgence.

"It's an unusual gap in the market," said Hess to Reuters reporters.

Added Hess, "There are FKK hotels where you can go into the restaurants and shops naked, for example. For FKK fans—not that I'm one of them—it's nothing unusual."

Hess said during an interview that he is not into the FKK movement, mostly because his parents weren’t, and when his family took summer vacations, they kept their clothes on, thank you very much. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, Hess is quick to add.

Hess was interviewed by Spiegel Online International, and told them that the flight has already been more than filled before they were even taking formal reservations.

"We plan to start taking bookings on [February 1st] but we're already receiving non-binding requests every 10 to 15 minutes on our Web site's pre-booking application," said Hess. We could already fill the first plane two or three times over, one of them just with the journalists who want to be on the flight."

There’s an interesting mental picture.

There will be special considerations taken during the flight, says Hess, like no serving of hot drinks. In addition, the passengers will not be parking their naked er, nethers right onto the seats, a question that has been asked more than once. They’ll be given specially sized cloths which will be placed onto the seats. (Admit it, you were wondering about that.)

When asked how the unclothed passengers will not become chilled during the 60-minute flight, Hess responded, "That is a serious issue." He emphasized that the flight will be happening in the middle of summer, and that internal cabin temperatures can be modified.

The flight will cost the equivalent of $735, quite expensive by industry standards for such a short flight. Hess stressed that it was because the plane taking the trip is a small plane, not that he’s overcharging people just because they want to be naked.

Because of the overwhelming popularity of this one trip, Hess plans to expand into full-length FKK vacations, including flights, naked hotel stays, and possibly even nude cruises.

Hopefully, no one will mistakenly think that FKK stands for something else – Free Karaoke and Kielbasa? – and board the plane unwittingly.

Nobody was expecting the stripped-down service to take off so quickly, least of all OssiUrlaub.de owner Hess.

But now that the press has uncovered his plan to offer the flight, and folks worldwide are eager to sign up for it, he can barely contain his delight.