Well Well Well l I have been watching this post with interest and cannot believe how Negative some of the comments have been. I do speak as an ex AEU employee so do have some experience of the company. I had the fortune to be part of the start up of the company and as any one knows new companys have their teething troubles. ( I once worked for a big airline at LGW and their teething troubles went on for 7 years!!)
Astraeus did not ( and I may be wrong here) and still does not have the luxury of being tied to a holiday company (I think its called vertical intergration) so they are independant and have to go out and fight for their work, per say. This may impact on their in house resources and the effects/benefits to their employees.
I can say hand on heart when I went for the interview the Commercial director, Cabin service MGr and Chief pilot told it how it was. The pay was discussed the work style discussed and all the things that you want to know at interviews was told. I dont think that has changed... certainly didnt when i was part of the recruitment team. We told prospective candidates How it was.....
possibly some people may have "selective information retention"
but thats human nature.
Anyway to get to the point Astraeus was/is a good quality airline and considering how young the company is they have expanded in leaps and bounds and they certainly have a quality product(which admittedly took sometime to instill and maintain ) but they have got there.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and experienced some real "old fashioned" flying doing sub-charters, VIP flights and the low cost and high profile stuff that many of the UK airlines dont do any more (thats vertical intergration for you)
My advice to any considering flying for Astraeus is go for it... it will give you a good grounding into aviation and whilst it may not make you a millionaire you will be far richer from the experiences. people and general comaradery that is sadly so lacking in many airlines in the UK.
You may be asking then if it was so fantanstic there why I am an ex employee?
The reason being I had got as far as I could and needed more challenges and opportunities, which I truly believe my Manager understood.
Anyway enough said I feel... Give AEU a try they really are "Stars in the Sky" (copyrighted!!!!!)...
