hangars and an aircraft maintenance base. Together with the earlier acquisition of the entire CV-990 spares inventory and engine tooling equipment, it helped the airline reduce its maintenance costs and improve the reliability of its fleet by enabling it to perform most maintenance tasks in-house. Establishment and growth of West Berlin operation In March 1968, Modern Air stationed two CV-990 jets at West Berlin's Tegel Airport. These were the biggest and fastest aircraft based at any Berlin airport at that time. Modern's new base employed 120. Apart from the flight deck personnel (who were required to hold US, British or French passports under West Berlin commercial air transport regulations), all were local. The latter included locally based, all-female cabin crew, who were known as "tiger girls" because of their distinctive yellow-and-black striped uniforms. While all Modern Air commercial flights from and to Berlin principally used Tegel to take advantage of the airport's longer runways and the fact that it was not in a built-up area making for easier approaches (compared with nearby Tempelhof), the airline conducted its training for Berlin-based flight deck crews at Tempelhof. The latter was also the designated diversion airport in bad weather in the Tegel area. The establishment of Modern Air's Berlin base also enabled it to provide aircraft ground handling, maintenance and catering services to third parties, including Air France and Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). As Modern Air's West Berlin charter permit did not authorise the carriage of cargo, the airline's Berlin management decided to utilise the only lightly filled cargo holds of its Tegel-based CV-990s to carry inbound catering and essential spares and tooling, including a spare tyre. The reason for carrying catering destined for passengers booked on return flights all the way from Berlin rather than appointing local suppliers at destination airports was that it worked out cheaper and was deemed more reliable and safer (compared with relying on overseas suppliers with varying quality and hygiene standards and who often plied their trade only seasonally) while the reason for carrying essential spares and tooling on outbound aircraft was to ensure emergency serviceability at destination airports lacking CV-990 spares inventories, given the type's narrow operator base (compared with the then ubiquitous Boeing and Douglas types and other popular contemporary aircraft types). Modern's two Berlin-based Convair jets flew to 19 destinations from Tegel Airport during their first summer season, which lasted from May