Despite security, don't look for 'bare in the air' to catch on

Recently, an agent at London City Airport's security checkpoint asked a Swiss International Airway pilot to remove his shoes and belt. He took it up a notch and removed everything. Apparently he felt stripped of his rights, so he stripped. I'm sure passengers who endured a several-hour delay because of his antics weren't happy with the naked truth.

This isn't the first pilot to bare his soul - along with other bodily parts. Several years ago, two Southwest Airlines pilots gave new meaning to "takeoff" when they reached cruising altitude and removed their uniforms. The pilots claimed they were just drying out their clothes after a mishap with coffee. But the flight attendant they summoned to the cockpit said it was more than their uniforms that was all wet. The airline stripped them of their wings which was just as well. They had no place to pin them anyway.

Putting your lives in the hands of pilots who can't seem to keep their emotions, etc. under wrap seems somewhat dangerous. Still, they might be onto something.

Over the years, several passengers have tried the "bare in the air" approach to travel. A few years back, a man wearing only his birthday suit, jumped into the wheel well of a Qantas jet as it taxied for takeoff in Los Angeles. And passengers on international flights have been known to change clothes in the middle of the aisle. On one flight to Rome, a passenger stripped and attempted to take a bath in the tiny, lavatory sink.

A few years ago, a travel agency sponsored a naked flight from Miami to Cancun, Mexico. The crew members remained fully clothed. However, when the seatbelt sign went off, so did the passengers' clothing. For the duration of the flight, they freely - extremely freely - moved about the cabin. They didn't dress for dinner, but they did dress for landing and spared Mexican immigration the naked truth.

And just last year, a German travel agency began booking all nude flights to Usedom, one of the Baltic Islands. Apparently there was a lot of negative press about the flights and the travel agency couldn't "bare" the pressure and the trips were scrapped.

But that doesn't mean the Emperor's New Clothes wouldn't make a great travel uniform.

Dressed in the buff, passengers would literally streak through security lines. Of course you would still have the occasional alarm sound when someone with a body pierce or a hip replacement passed through the scanning equipment. But with no place to hide a weapon, hijacking and terrorist threats would virtually disappear. Any would-be terrorist who attempted to storm the cockpit would hardly instill fear into the other passengers, although they might die laughing.

There would still be the problem of where to keep your government ID. And shoes would still be an issue. But flying in the raw could be the greatest revolution in travel since the invention of the wheel which allowed travelers to bring their clothes onboard. And now that many airports are equipped with X-ray equipment that can see through our clothing, agents already observe more of us than we care to share. Still, it will be many moons before "The Naked Ape" hits the runway.

Gail Todd, a free-lance writer,worked as a flight attendant for more than 30years. She can be reached via e-mail at gailtodd@aol.com.