Boy, 12, flies to Bali using family credit card

SYDNEY (AFP) — Australian police yesterday started looking into how a 12-yearold boy managed to fly alone to the Indonesian island of Bali and spend four days at a resort using his parents’ credit card.

The boy ran away from his Sydney home after a row with his mother, flying first to the Western Australian city of Perth on budget airline Jetstar and then on to Bali, according to commercial broadcaster Channel Nine.

“He just doesn’t like the word ‘no,’ and that’s what I got, a kid in Indonesia,” his mother Emma told Channel

Nine in a program that aired late Monday.

“It’s too easy, it’s way too easy. There’s a problem in our system,” she said, calling for tighter controls on air travel by young people.

The family had previously visited Bali on holiday and Emma said her son had already tried to book flights there on his own but had been knocked back by airlines because he did not have a letter from her.

“We screamed, we begged for help (from Australian authorities) for weeks on end,” Emma said. “When the first attempt to Indonesia took place, we were told his passport was going to be flagged.”

The boy, who “wanted to go on an adventure,” said he was told by airline staff this time that he did not need permission from his parents to board the flights.

He spent four days in Bali, where he said he checked into a hotel, hired a scooter and drank beer before a friend alerted his mother to a geotagged video of himself playing in a swimming pool.

The holiday cost his parents Aus$8,000 (US$6,100), according to Channel Nine.

The Australian Federal Police said they were first notified that the boy might try to leave the country on March 8, before being told he might be in Bali on March 17.

The boy was found by Indonesian police the following day. His parents then flew to Bali to take him home.