After decades as the frontman of Iron Maiden, Bruce Dickinson has a new second job – in middle management. The English singer has been named marketing director of Astraeus, a Gatwick-based charter airline, where he has worked as a pilot for several years.
The announcement at the bottom of the Astraeus website makes it sound like just another corporate position. "With the rapid growth in the business we have increased our commercial team," the statement reads. "Bruce Dickinson as our marketing director, [and] Claire Ronson has now moved to sales and marketing to support our sales team." They don't even give Dickinson his own sentence, spilling more words on new product and planning head, Seb Pelissier.
But Dickinson isn't just another suit. This is the man who sang Bring Your Daughter ... to the Slaughter, and, more aptly, Flight of Icarus. This is the man who hosted a television programme on human combustion. This is the radio DJ who recently lost his job and, perhaps, decided he could use some extra grocery money.
"Bruce is a great communicator," explained Astraeus's chief commercial officer, Shaun Monnery. "[And] he knows the aviation industry inside out." A long-time pilot, Dickinson has not just flown commercial charters for Astraeus, he has helmed Iron Maiden's private jet and even rescued stranded Britons. "I did seriously think about going to fly aeroplanes as an alternative career," he told the Guardian in 2002. "I was putting out piloting CVs that said nothing about me being the lead singer of Iron Maiden."
"In a demanding industry he is a man who can cope with pressure," Monnery said, "whether as a 757 captain or in front of 50,000 Iron Maiden fans, or senior airline and aviation managers." And Dickinson, 52, shows no sign of quitting his other gig. "I could never contemplate giving up music," he told CNN last year. People say, 'Why do you need a second job?'. I say 'Why do you need to breathe?'"
