Aces High - Iron Maiden frontman to the rescue

After the collapse of tour operator XL, the first of the 90,00 stranded British holidaymakers are starting to arrive back in the UK.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has announced that 11,900 people have already been repatriated on 52 specially chartered flights, with aircraft being provided by BA, bmi, Monarch, Virgin Atlantic and commercial charter company Astraeus.

And one of those Astraeus flights held a surprise for passengers.  Piloting a plane out of Sharm El Sheikh was Captain Bruce Dickinson.

Better known as the lead singer of British heavy metal legends Iron Maiden, Dickinson is very much the Renaissance man of Metal - novelist, film-maker, international sword-fencer and licensed pilot. This isn't the first time Dickinson has rescued stranded Brits:  2006 saw him fly 200 Brits home from war-torn Lebanon.

More recently, he's been combining his day job with this high-flying sideline, piloting his band on their world tour in an Astraeus Boeing 757.


Bruce talks about the flight to the BBC.