King Abdullah returns

It took an 'army' to send the king off

Saudi King Abdullah and his enormous retinue needed "at least a dozen" tractor-trailers to load their mountain of luggage and an army of outside contractors to do security screening before he could fly out of JFK last week.
A source told us, "The amount of luggage they had from shopping they did in New York was awe-inspiring. Airport workers joked they must have been 'a mini-stimulus package' for the city." The king, 87 -- who was in town for two months for back surgery and booked whole floors of the Plaza and Waldorf-Astoria to recover -- and his entourage left on more than six private jets.
Sources said he flew out on his own Boeing 747 while two wives left on smaller jets. One source said, "There were separate jets for wife No. 1 and wife No. 2 and their own retinues. The entourage was so large that the Transportation Security Administration was forced to hire an outside company to complete the screening."