Astraeus Appoints Administrators

UK ACMI specialist Astraeus Airlines ceased operations on November 21 and has appointed administrators. The carrier originally offered charter services to the travel industry alongside its ACMI activities but in recent years had focused purely on the wet-lease market with aircraft flying with bmi British Midland International, Iceland Express and Tonlesap Airlines, among others.

“We battled hard to save Astraeus, but lower-than-expected levels of business during the summer of 2011, a lack of contracts for winter 2011-2012, and some extremely bad luck with a number of technical issues mean that we have no option but to cease all operations and put Astraeus Airlines in the hands of the administrators,” explained Hugh Parry, Chief Executive Officer, Astraeus.

The airline’s last flight was on behalf of bmi from Jeddah to Manchester on the morning of November 21 and was captained by the airline’s famous pilot, Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer of the rock band Iron Maiden. He revealed he is “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,” taking a knock at the carrier’s Icelandic owner Eignarhaldsfelagid Fengur HF in the process.

“Frankly, now Astraeus has been relieved of the business model imposed upon it by Icelandic owners, who, to be honest, perhaps did not fully appreciate the way the key commercial aviation markets operated, I see the potential for a viable operation should acquisition of the company prove achievable,” said Bruce Dickinson.

“There is no reason why the original business model, which established Astraeus as possibly the best and most successful organisation in its sector, cannot be resurrected to the benefit of former employees and airline partners and clients alike,” he added.