Why would somebody book and pay for a flight, come to an airport, queue up, check in, proceed through immigration and security, and then not board their plane?
On several occasions, I’ve heard people being paged and seen crew scurrying up and down the aisles, knocking on the rest room doors, trying to locate a missing passenger before the plane can leave the gate.
Once, the pilot came on the tannoy to say what had happened and explain the procedure they were obliged to follow. If a checked-in passenger doesn’t show at the gate after being paged, then the baggage handlers have to reboard the luggage compartment, identify the person’s belongings and remove them from the aircraft. That, of course takes time, and can cause long delays at busy airports where vacant departure slots are few and far between.
I also once sat at the terminal gate before boarding my own flight and watched on in slight bemusement as an airline employee at the neighbouring gate paged a passenger in vaguely threatening language — “Everybody else has boarded the plane …” but in vain.
Of course, the obvious concern of the airlines and airport security staff is that the person may have put an explosive device in their luggage. But I suppose there are other reasons for missing a flight even when you’re at the airport.
Perhaps some people suddenly get sick, have a fear-of-flying attack, change their plans at the last minute, or get stuck in the toilet (or at the bar).
Or, and this is my favourite theory, there are rich people out there who have no intention of flying but do it just to mess with the rest of us.
It is quite possible that the passenger has simply been swallowed up by their gigantic sack of Tang, never to be seen or heard from again?
Frequent flyer trolls.
An airline airport manager once told me some passengers just become mesmerised by the duty free shops (and the bars, I guess). Maybe not in Brisbane but quite probable in, say, Dubai, Schiphol, Singapore or Hong Kong.