Astraeus Airlines pilot and marketing director Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden, has vowed to rescue the carrier.
The Gatwick-based ad hoc airline, a subsidiary of Icelandic travel group Eignarhaldsfelagid Fengur – owner of Iceland Express – fell into administration on Monday after a downturn in summer business.
Dickinson said: “I’m already working on a plan to try to save Astraeus, or at least create a new business with new jobs for my friends and former colleagues at Astraeus.”
He was reported by the BBC as saying a “number of prospective investors” had expressed an interest in the airline and that he was working on plans to create a new flight training company.
“The enthusiasm is also fuelled by the deluge of messages I received from the second I switched on my phone after landing the last Astraeus flight on Monday, and, of course, the interest of a number of prospective investors,” the singer said.
“I will be back at the controls of a commercial airliner before I am very much older, but I may also be at the controls of the company that operates that airliner, and others like it.”
Dickinson has used the airline to fly his band on tour in 2008, 2009 and this year.