Really? I think she was probably being snarky to his "Do you know who I am?" type of behavior. The fact is, in the civilian airport, she does outrank him.
I read the article with a cynical eye and I was picking out little things in his story, but what really killed his case is that he admitted to being told to get on the ground and admitted to not being on the ground later. The only thing that's keeping him from having a criminal record is that the cops went WAY overboard and weren't satisfied just to handcuff him and let him stew in a corner of the airport.
Not for nothing, but in the civilian world, nobody "outranks" anyone else.