Was Sofia Coppola’s Teenage Daughter’s Great Helicopter Escape Possible?

It’s really tough here these days for the children of the very famous and rich. This week, Romy Mars, the 16-year-old daughter of auteur film director Sofia Coppola, and Thomas Mars, the lead singer of indie-pop band Phoenix, went viral for a TikTok she absolutely shouldn’t be doing.

By now you’ve probably seen it: According to the New York Timesmore people watched this tiktok than the finale of The last of us on HBO.

“My parents’ number one rule is that I can’t have any public social media accounts,” Mars begins in the since-deleted post, filming in her kitchen trying a pasta recipe because she’s bored and being punished. “I’m grounded for trying to use my dad’s credit card to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland to have dinner with my camp friend.”

Shed the veil of privilege, the endless Nepo-baby talk, and the joking teenage inexperience on display – Romy breaks down that she can’t tell the difference garlic and an onion– and let’s concentrate on the actual problem here. Can well-off teenagers actually get away with chartering their own helicopter rides? Was the only thing standing between Romy and dinner with this camp friend was her irate, credit-card-wielding father? Could she have gone through her journey otherwise?

A representative for elite private helicopter service Heliflite told The Daily Beast that the charter company would not secure a private helicopter trip, say, from NYC to Maryland, for minors: the person booking the flight must be over 18, and each passenger must present ID.

The representative also told The Daily Beast that the name on the credit card used to book a Heliflite trip must also match the lead passenger’s name on the helicopter trip, allowing the use of your father’s credit card without your father’s presence definitely wouldn’t fly. whether you are a teenager or a cash-strapped adult. Minors also cannot fly alone on Heliflite: an adult passenger must also be present, although the adult does not necessarily have to be a parent or legal guardian of the minor, the representative said.

Likewise, any person wishing to book a flight through BLADE helicopter charter company must have a BLADE account and the Terms of Use require all users to be at least 18 years of age. BLADE’s Terms of Service also states that the company’s services “are not directed to children under the age of 13.”

Riptinder Singh, who manages private charter services at HeliNY, told The Daily Beast that you must be 18 to book a flight and that the price of the flight, its duration and baggage details are all factors that are taken into account and double counted become. checked.

In other words, it would be almost impossible to sneak a spin past parents or company.

“We’ve never had a situation like this where a minor tried to book a helicopter,” Tinder told The Daily Beast. “Sure, people have used fraudulent or stolen cards, but that doesn’t happen often. It’s very, very rare.”

Also, Tinder said, when the kids of very wealthy people or very famous people go on chartered helicopter rides, “they are always accompanied by the parents or the nannies. There is always someone with them, they are never alone.”

Good luck next time Romy! The Daily Beast has reached out to Coppola and Mars for comment.