Kate Moss being removed from an easyJet flight presents a clash of two gloriously immovable forces

There’s a beautiful irony in rumours that Moss called the pilot a 'basic bitch', because the offer of Gatwick to Cologne for £24 makes basic bitches of all of us

Sir Richard Branson carries model Kate Moss on a wing of a jumbo jet in 2009 (Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images)

As details start to emerge of why supermodel and national treasure Kate Moss was removed by police from easyJet Flight EZY2232 – Bodrum to Luton – it is fun to speculate on what might have led our favourite Croydon export to become “disruptive”.

Because as all seasoned travellers are aware, the upside of easyJet and its cheap n’ cheerful rivals is that they will fly you to chic and sunny climes – Faro, Montpellier, Thessaloniki and so on – for less than it might cost to board a Virgin train from Euston to Warrington Bank Quays.

The downside, of course, is that budget airline services arrive when the air traffic controller feels like it – maybe tomorrow, maybe the next. Who knows?! It lends a sense of mystery and derring-do to any mini-break.

Plus, since scratchcards tend to be available on the flight, there’s a good chance a woman seated next to you with a dolphin neck tattoo will scratch them furiously all the way to Paphos, discarding the silver foil bits on your in-flight microwave panini. And as the plane touches down on the tarmac safely, pockets of passengers will burst into applause, so easily pleased in the hospitality stakes they believe anything other than dying in a mid-flight fireball is a positive boon.

There is a lot to test the average A-list celeb’s patience when flying budget, but at least one is never bored. I once travelled from Luton to Barcelona in the middle of a vibrant stag party from Hull all wearing T-shirts which read: “Kirky’s Stag Weekend II: This Time He Really Means It.” What had happened to the first Mrs Kirky remained unclear, but she was a rash woman to let this Romeo slip through her hands.

One can complain about budget airlines all one likes, but the thing about them is – as Kate Moss and her gang have learned clearly – they’re so bloody handy. The devil wears tangerine nylon. In fact, there’s a beautiful irony in rumours that Moss called the pilot one of the greatest modern insults, “basic bitch” – meaning entry-level human being, sophistication-free zone, cash-poor, zero star-appeal – because the offer of Gatwick to Cologne for £24 makes basic bitches of all of us.

But, for me, the best thing about KatedoeseasyJet-gate is that it presents a clash of two gloriously immovable forces. Kate Moss and air stewards. It has long been established that Kate Moss doesn’t give a flying fig what journalists, columnists, basic bitches, potential clients and anyone looking for a role model think of her. This is one of Kate Moss’s stellar USPs.

Are you rankled that Kate Moss has been linked with life’s salubrious side? That she wears fur, appears in smutty anti-wimmin fashion shoots in Playboy bunny ears, refuses to stop partying aged 41 and never plays the “I’m just a mummy really” card? Are you angry that she rarely speaks in public and shamelessly adores earning huge amounts of cash for doing almost literally nothing but standing upright?

Are you furious, nay apopleptic with ire, that she was escorted off a flight by police – reportedly swigging vodka – after a luxury trip to the hippy-dippy LifeCo Centre with Fran Cutler, Sadie Frost and her regular crew of semi-retired hell-raiser? Kate Moss does not care about your umbrage.

And there is something gloriously, infectiously freeing about this state of womanhood. Moss, Madonna, Naomi and Rihanna all share this unapologetic slant which encourages columnists like me to reach for the laptop, write caustic, worthy rebukes – then a few hours later think, “Actually, the fact that these women don’t yearn for approval is acutely positive.”

Moss, who is the most shame-free of all these women, does not even trade in stilted, publicist-managed explanations. Never explain, never complain is her default setting. And from now on, possibly: never book a seat on a commoners’ plane. That’s no big loss: if I had her cash I’d forget that turning right at the top of the steps even existed.

Where Moss may have erred this time is to try her antics with the wrong air steward. Because as any frequent flier knows these people also have a tendency to be massive non-negotiable divas too. Not all of them, of course, as the job requires a sunny nature and boundless patience. But some of them are scrappy, draconian, power-mad and frankly sick of being locked in an air-tight box with the likes of us and our childish needs for water and flight-socks.

Air stewards know that the sort of customer quibble which would lead to nothing in the high street can be stoked up into a serious incident on an aeroplane. “She (Moss) was a little drunk and had a disagreement with another passenger on the flight as she was refused alcohol,” a passenger on the flight is reported to have said. “And then went to serve her own vodka from her cabin luggage. But she was not aggressive to anyone and was funny really. The easyJet crew was acting out of proportion.”

After the incident, Bedfordshire Police – who hopefully had nothing vital to deal with that day – said: “Officers attended and escorted the passenger from the plane. No formal complaints were made against her and she was not arrested.”

I feel Moss should be grateful the pilot didn’t force-land the flight in Paris, Charles De Gaulle, and have her put in a cell for 48 hours. The wonderful thing about that would be, she would emerge looking unruffled, non-contrite and perfectly pulled together. Then Sadie and Fran would book them all a £10k-a-day girls’ break in Mauritius to get over it. You can’t beat Moss. You just can’t. We all need to make peace with that.