Sir William Hildred, C.B., O.B.E., Director-General of I.A.T.A., in his Annual Report, which he presented at the I.A.T.A. Conference in Paris in the middle of September 1954, pointed out that there was an urgent need for a drive for greater efficiency to obtain a balanced airline economy. He quoted some interesting I.C.A.O. figures. These covered all the world's scheduled operators, both the profit-making and the loss-making companies. In 1951, the world's airlines showed that total operating revenues were 6 per cent, higher than total costs. In 1952, this figure was down to 3·6 per cent, and in 1953, down to 1·1 per cent., which represented $27-million profit on a total business of $2,500-million. It should be noted that this $27-million profit is arrived at after the pay-out of direct taxation by the profit-making companies to the tune of $69-million.