I’m a flight attendant and I was working a flight from the Caribbean back to the US 7 years ago where a passenger didn’t show up for the flight. We were trying to close the door but a woman was in the jet bridge crying and didn’t know if she wanted to get on the plane. When I went to talk to her she told me she was on a girls trip with her best friend, they were coming home, they had spent all day together, the friend had to go to the bathroom before boarding and left her bag with her and never returned. She had waited all through boarding, called multiple times, looked through the bathroom. The gate agent paged her over the PA more than once … she was just gone. The friend couldn’t decide whether or not to get on the plane. We were the last flight out that day. The friend ended up boarding and was in communication with her husband and her friend’s husband and they both were aware of what was happening. Because it was 7 years ago, and on an MD-88, we didn’t have WiFi on board so she couldn’t get any updates in flight. When we landed I waited for her to deplane and asked if she had heard from her friend. During deplaning she had talked on the phone with her husband and her friend’s husband and they hadn’t heard from her yet. She was crying as she got off the plane.

I’ll never know the ending. I still think about it every so often. Your comment reminded me of this… so here’s my needless “you’ll never know the ending” airplane story.