The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
The View’s Falconer ‘left penniless’ after £25,000 air rage bill
30-yearold singer said to be ‘deeply ashamed’ of his behaviour
The View frontman Kyle Falconer, 30, has been left penniless after being hit with a £25,000 bill for an air rage incident last year.
Despite scoring a number one album with the band’s debut, Hats off to the Buskers, in 2007, members of the singer’s family have had to help him pay the bill to airline Jet 2.
The singer squared up to a fellow passenger and made homophobic remarks to a male flight attendant on the flight from Barcelona to Glasgow.
Falconer has also had to cough up nearly £9,000 in legal fees and has now been hit with a £1,000 fine.
The details emerged yesterday at Paisley Sheriff Court when Falconer admitted behaving “in a threatening or abusive manner likely to cause a reasonable person to suffer fear or alarm” on June 17 last year.
Depute fiscal Margaret McCallum said Falconer was asked to behave after being seated apart from his partner, Laura Wylde, and consistently bumping into the woman sitting next to him and spilling drink on her as he turned to talk to Ms Wylde, who was seated behind him.
She added: “The accused took umbrage at this request and stood up in, what’s described as, ‘an aggressive manner’.”
Defence solicitor Ian Houston said The View made little money from their successes.
Their debut went platinum and they have released five subsequent albums.
He said: “The band has incurred considerable debts, to the extent that the members are paid a weekly wage of £350.”
He continued:”This whole event has cost him £25,000 – money he doesn’t have and will have to work hard to pay back. He is deeply ashamed.”
The court heard friends and family had helped him pay Jet2 the £14,000 diversion bill, that he has a previous conviction for cocaine possession, spent three months in rehab in Thailand for binge drinking and is due to support Liam Gallagher on tour in America next year.
As he fined Falconer £1,000, Sheriff David Pender said: “An offence of this type in the confines of an aircraft cabin must be very, very distressing to those affected by it.”