Naomi Cracks Under Strain Of T5 Mayhem
If there was one person who should never have been allowed near Heathrow Terminal 5 this week it was the supermodel Naomi Campbell. Nearly 500 flights have been cancelled since the British Airways terminal opened on Monday, at a cost to the airline of £16m, and up to 28,000 bags have been mislaid. And then along comes the supermodel famous for airport “incidents” from London to Bogota.
She may have been to a court-ordered anger management course – after flinging a phone at her Park Avenue apartment maid – but no one ever said the course had worked. Fireworks were inevitable.
At 17.11 on Thursday, according to Heathrow police, they were alerted to an incident at Terminal 5. Campbell was missing a bag – either a heavy suitcase, according to some reports, or a piece of hand luggage. One report, which has the ring of truth, claims it was a heavy bag filled with clothes that she wanted with her because – quite reasonably – she feared she’d never see it again if it went in the hold.
Either way, Campbell, sitting in the first class lounge on board flight BA269 bound for Los Angeles, wanted her bag and she wanted it now. When the police were called, she apparently spat at an officer and was arrested for assault. Other passengers had to wait two hours for take-off while the rest of Campbell’s luggage, which had somehow found its way onto the correct flight, were removed, along with her entourage.
Campbell was later released on bail. Terminal 5 promises to be operating a full flight schedule on Saturday for the first time since it opened.