The 'cost' of the AOC will rather depend on how well organised and prepared the applicant is.
If Hans couldn't afford the cost of completing the steps to obtain an AOC, then I rather doubt their finances would have been robust enough to sustain a period of long-haul operations. I rather suspect that the latter, which is assessed as part of the Operating Licence application, might have been more of a stumbling block than the finance needed to complete the AOC process.