Iron Maiden superstar Bruce Dickinson, who moonlights as an airline pilot for Astraeus Airlines, will be flying the Liverpool soccer team to Naples this Thursday for their Europa League clash with Napoli.
Dickinson told BBC News, “I was originally supposed to be going to Iceland and flying down to Las Palmas and Tenerife, but this looked a lot more interesting so I’m flying the team down to Naples.”
Dickinson, who joined Iron Maiden in 1981, holds a commercial pilot’s license, and regularly flies Boeing 757 planes for the U.K.-based Astraeus, where he is both captain and marketing director.
Dickinson has managed to combine his rock star chores with flying planes. “In fact, the airline that I work for, Astraeus, we designed an aeroplane for an Iron Maiden tour and flew it ’round the world; we’ve done it twice now,” he said. “It’s never been done before, bands have had private jets before, but no band until Maiden has even come up with the idea of taking all the equipment, and the road crew and the band on one aircraft. It’s like the biggest tour bus in the world.”