A hard rocker helps relaunch an African flag carrier
By J.J.C.
THE roll-call of A-list celebrity pilots is a long one. John Travolta, Harrison Ford, Morgan Freeman, Tom Cruise, Angelina Jolie and Kurt Russell all have pilot licences and their own private aircraft to fly. If helicopter licences are included then the list extends to Clint Eastwood, Gisele Bundchen, a supermodel, and Jay Kay, a singer.
Given the combination of jet-setting lifestyles and vast wealth, it is little surprise that so many famous names take to the skies using their own wings. But Bruce Dickinson, the frontman of Iron Maiden, a heavy metal band, has always been one to push things further. While most celebrity pilots fly themselves, Mr Dickinson ferries about paying customers. He spent almost a decade as a captain for Astraeus, a British charter airline. The singer managed to fit his salaried airline role around his musical, brewing and international fencing commitments, and became marketing director of the carrier in 2010. After the airline folded in 2011, Mr Dickinson formed Cardiff Aviation, a training and maintenance firm based in South Wales.
It is in this role that Mr Dickinson took another leap into airline management. Cardiff Aviation recently signed an agreement to help relaunch Djibouti's national carrier, Air Djibouti. Cardiff Aviation will play a significant role in the new airline including sourcing new aircraft. The relaunch comes as China is investing a mooted $12 billion on infrastructure projects in the tiny East African nation, including building two new airports.
Djibouti hopes the investment will allow it to use its location on the horn of Africa and its relatively stable low-tax business environment to become a Sub-Saharan African trade centre. Optimistically, it says it hopes one day to compete with Dubai.
Given that Air Djibouti collapsed into liquidation in 2002 amid financial mismanagement, Mr Dickinson may have his work cut out. Djibouti's national airport is shared with the American, French, Italian and Japanese military, and has capacity for just half a million passengers a year. It is unlikely to be featuring on the itineraries of business travellers in the same way that Dubai does anytime soon. In fact, it is just possible that Mr Dickinson is more famous than the country itself, which has a population of just 810,000, or one person for every 105 Iron Maiden albums sold. But that won’t worry a man described by Intelligent Life as a living example of a modern-day polymath.
