Passengers waiting to board a Qantas flight from Melbourne to Canberra were left fuming after the boarding was held up by a “very important” guest.
Victorian Governor Linda Dessau reportedly requested to “pre-board” the QF158 flight ahead of other passengers on Wednesday morning.
Ms Dessau was understood to be heading to Canberra for Queen Elizabeth II’s National Memorial service the following day.
But when passengers were due to board at 11am, Ms Dessau was nowhere to be seen.
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A Qantas passenger named Imre told 2GB’s Drive with Jim Wilson he had “never seen anything like it”.
“We were just standing there waiting to board. The flight was due to take off at 11am,” he said.Â
“Everybody’s there, the plane’s there, all the passengers that were previously on that have disembark. The air hostesses seemed keen to get everybody on the flight…”Â
Imre said the customers were frustrated and confused as they waited to board the flight for up to 20 minutes.
“As we were about to board they said no sorry we need to wait for a VIP of some sort and we just waited for 5 minutes… 10 minutes,” he said.
“People were just looking at each other like what on earth, who could this person be? What are we doing here?”Â
Imre said the air hostess seemed “eager” to board the plane and described watching them getting instructions on the phone, walking up and down to see if the VIP was coming.
“And eventually after 20 minutes, someone turns up, no one seemed to even recognise (her) in the queue,” he said.Â
“Had a couple of handlers with her, and an airport staffer and just struts past everybody. I mean they had to clear the queue out of the road… and then of course they sit in business class…”
Ms Dessau is Victoria’s first female governor and the representative of the monarch King Charles III in the state.
SkyNews.com.au has contacted Qantas for a statement.
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