an office in Hong Kong to capture a greater share of lucrative Far East cargo traffic. To ensure every single operation showed a clear profit on a full costing basis, i.e. inclusive of all overhead costs, the company required each operation to be budgeted in detail before deciding whether to accept it. The managing director's authorisation was required to dispense with this rule in exceptional cases where the risk of accepting a contract that was only marginally profitable, i.e. excluding overheads, was outweighed by the risk of having an aircraft sit idly on the ground. An immediate financial analysis that compared actual costs and revenues with their budgets followed the completion of each flight, thereby instantly gauging that flight's profitability and validating the effectiveness of the firm's pricing policy. A policy of requiring aircraft commanders to pay for all operating expenses other than fuel in cash proved to be an effective method to exercise instant cost control over fees and charges incurred for products and services supplied by third parties, such as ground handling fees, technical support services and catering supplies. In addition, the principle of strict cost control was also applied to aircraft maintenance and flight operations. This entailed outsourcing all engineering work as the fleet was too small to warrant Lloyd International setting up its own maintenance department. It furthermore involved "buying" flying hours at a fixed rate. Moreover, through Wheelock Marden, Lloyd International was indirectly associated with the Hong Kong Aircraft Engineering Company. This enabled it to draw on that company's extensive spares pool in Hong Kong. (Other than Hong Kong, Lloyd International pursued a policy of not stationing any spares along regular routes flown by its aircraft. Instead each aircraft carried its own spares kit — usually consisting of a spare wheel and brake — and a ground engineer.) In the context of Lloyd International's management's firm belief in exercising tight control over ist costs regarding all aspects of the airline's operations, it is of interest to note that flightdeck crews were instructed to operate their aircraft in high-speed cruise mode despite the resulting higher operating costs due to increased fuel consumption. In an era of low jet fuel prices, this was the most economical option when taking into account the then statutory limit for aircrew to fly up to 115 hours in 28 days, the fact that engineering costs were charged on a flat hourly