Lloyd International Airways, Hong Kong connection – Aviation Management Ltd

IDJ has kindly sent the following magazine article about Lloyd International Airways which shows there was a connection between the airline and Hong Kong. In particular it mentions that the airline was effectively owned by Aviation Management Ltd, a company incorporated and based in Hong Kong with a substantial share allotment owned by the Hong Kong based businessman John L. Marden about whom we have the following article posted, George Ernest Marden & John Louis Marden, see below.

HF: We have already posted information about this magazine article in our website article  Lloyd International Airways Ltd – additional information, but I thought it would be useful if I retyped the whole article. Where terms are used which I think need explanation I have attempted to do so, denoted by a definition within square brackets.

The last image below accompanied the Flight International article. The other images I have randomly selected from the internet.

Many thanks to SCT for proof reading the retyped article.

Looking into Lloyd

Light is thrown both on the workings of the US Civil Aeronautics Board and on the structure of one British independent charter airline by the CAB’s [the Civil Aeronautics Board an agency of the federal government of the United States, formed in 1938 and abolished in 1985, that regulated aviation services including scheduled passenger airline service and provided air accident investigation.] published decision of its hearing on the airline’s application last year for a US foreign air carrier permit. The airline is Lloyd International Airways, which was applying for authority to operate charters (including split charters) [A charter in which more than one chartering entity shares, or splits, the capacity of a chartered aircraft] and freight charters between the UK and USA.

Lloyd Int Airways Boeing 707 324C Courtesy JetPhotos

Boeing 707-324C Courtesy: JetPhotos

While little in the decision would appear unusual to Americans, there are lessons to be drawn on this side of the Atlantic. For one thing the CAB elicits a greater degree of detail about the affairs of Lloyd International than has been published by the Board of Trade or any other source in Britain. Consideration of the decision is moreover appropriate at a time when in London the Air Transport Licensing Board is concluding the hearings of the independents’ case for transatlantic scheduled services – hearings which have been attended by frustration arising from the difficulty of obtaining appropriate statistical information. It seems possible that, even at the close of its hearings, the ATLB is not in possession of as concise background information on the applicants as was the CAB in the case of Lloyd.

Lloyd Int Airways Bristol 175 Brittania 307, March 1971 Location Luqa Malta Source AirTeamImages

Bristol 175 Brittania 307, March 1971, Location: Luqa Malta, Courtesy: AirTeamImage

The CAB has of course greater resources with which to make its inquiries, and greater experience behind it. But the points of concern to us in Britain are, first, that the Americans believe it necessary to investigate foreign carriers as thoroughly as they would their own; and, secondly, that we have to go for our information not to the ATLB, to the Board of Trade, or to the BoT’s Registrar of Companies, but to a foreign source (it was from the CAB that Parliament learnt the facts behind the misbegotten BOAC-Cunard deal).

A summary of the evidence to the CAB follows. Lloyd International is a British company with a share capital of 200,000 £1 shares, of which £100,000 were issued and outstanding. Of these shares, 99,999 are held by Aviation Management Ltd, a company incorporated and based in Hong Kong, and one share is held by J. Ortiz-Patino as nominee for that company. The ownership of the share capital of Aviation Management is divided as follows:-

British citizens:

John L. Marden, 200,000 shares
Peter O. Scales,  150,000 shares
Nicholas F. Mavroleon,  100,000 shares
Alistair L. Macleod  100,000 shares

Bolivian citizen:

Jaime Ortiz-Patino 50,000 shares

Liechtenstein citizen:

Atrato Establishment, 250,000 shares

The shares held by Mr Marden and Mr Scales are as nominees of Wheelock Marden and Co Ltd, a Hong Kong company with large shipping, insurance and other commercial interests. Messrs Ortiz-Patino, Mavroleon and Macleod, directors of Lloyd International, are 40, 20 and 5 per cent shareholders respectively in the Far East Aviation Co Ltd, a holding company which owns Lloyd International Airways (Hong Kong) Ltd, an air carrier with occasional operations in the Far East. Mr Marden and Mr Scales own a 13.7 and 0.6 per cent shareholding respectively in Wheelock Marden, which is a 35 per cent shareholder on the Far East Aviation Co Ltd. In addition, Lloyd International Airways (Hong Kong) Ltd is the owner of the aircraft leased to and operated by Lloyd International.

The Far East Aviation Co and J. Ortiz-Patino each own one half of the stock of SARDI SA, a Liechtenstein company, which owns and operates one executive aircraft. Aviation Management Ltd, which owns all of Lloyd International’s chare capital, will shortly own the share capital of Lloyd Aircraft Services Ltd and Brokaloyd Ltd, British companies which are respectively the company providing aircraft maintenance and technical assistance to Lloyd International, and Lloyd’s broker on the Baltic Exchange.

The board of Lloyd International is composed of four British citizens, one Australian and one Bolivian. With two exceptions all officers and managerial personnel are British. Otherwise none of Lloyd’s directors, shareholders, officers or managerial personnel hold any ownership interest in any air carrier, any common carrier, any US citizen engaged in any phase of aeronautics, or any person whose principal business is the holding of stock or control of any such carrier or US citizen.

In the year ended December 31, 1966, Lloyd International incurred a net loss of £44,548. However, its balance sheet on that date indicated assets of £493,025, of which £420,311 were current assets. Its present fleet of two Britannia 312s are leased from Lloyd International Airways (Hong Kong) Ltd, and it has also a DC-4 which is sub-leased to another carrier. The Hong Kong company has on order two DC-8-63Fs which will be leased to Lloyd International on delivery (August 1968 and May 1969 respectively). The two Britannias are maintained by Aviation Traders (Engineering) Ltd under a contract effective until 1972. Engine overhaul is performed by the manufacturer. Employees include 81 air crew, of which 21 are captains, and 29 ground and administration staff. Apart from the general sales organisation in London and Hong Kong, the company has ten general agents in Europe and the Far East.

Lloyd International estimates that its 1968 transatlantic passenger charter operations  of 70 one-way revenue flights, using three Britannias, will produce passenger revenue of $738,200, and a net operating profit of $108,032. In 1969, with 110 one-way revenue flights, the relative figures would be $1,168,000 and $177,736. It is proposed to operate also one DC-8 in 105 one-way revenue flights in 1969; passenger revenue from this operation would be $2,371,400, and net operating profit $595,554. The total revenue from four proposed one-way cargo flights is estimated at $35,000. Charter operations on the limited scale requested would be useful in filling ferry legs arising from transatlantic charter operations.

The CAB concluded that on the basis of considerations of reciprocity and for reasons which it had stated in its prior decisions, the public interest required grant of the authority sought, subject to certain conditions. The airline was fit, willing and able to perform the operations for which authority was sought, and it was, accordingly, in the public interest that a foreign air carrier permit should be issued to Lloyd International for a period of five years.

 

Lloyd International Image Of Plane AtKai Tak Oct 31st 1968

This photograph accompanied the Flight International article

Source Flight International 22nd February 1968

This article was first posted on 3rd October 2021.

Related Indhhk articles:

  1. Lloyd International Airways Ltd – additional information
  2. Lloyd International Airways Ltd – link to Hong Kong
  3. George Ernest Marden & John Louis Marden

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