No Passport, No Boarding Pass, No Problem: 11-Year-Old Flies to Rome with Nothing but a Smile

It could have been worse if he, say, had been flying the plane by accident

It’s a strange thing how I won’t let my nearly 4-year-old daughter walk 20 feet to our neighbors’ house without watching to make sure she gets there safely, but I don’t get anxious that she’ll go missing in an airport. The way I see it, she doesn’t want to separate from me just as much as I want her by my side at all times. And even if she did wander off, it’s not like anyone will let her on a plane without me. Right?

Wrong.

An 11-year-old boy without a passport, ticket or boarding pass recently managed to fly from England to Italy, according to Yahoo News (via L’Agence France-Presse). Yes, he departed from England, where there is currently heightened security due to the upcoming Olympics.

He flew from an airport in Manchester to Rome on Jet2.com airlines, and officials are trying to figure just how he did it, although the airline didn’t think it was such a big deal, claiming the kid wasn’t a “threat to the aircraft” and had gone through the security process.

However, not everyone was so casual about the incident.

“This is an unusual and serious breach and we are keen to find out what has gone on,” the government’s transport secretary, Justine Greening, said.

For his part, the boy was kid of blasé about the whole thing.

“He just sat there chatting away about how he’d been trying to run away from home,” one of the passengers was quoted as saying. “He seemed quite innocent, really, and I don’t think it had sunk in how serious the situation was.”

Security footage from the airport shows the boy mingling with families moving through the airport. He has since been reunited with his family in Manchester. And I am going out to buy an iron leash for my older daughter.

Photo credit: iStock