Article Posted on : - Dec 25, 2010

Air China Boeing 737-800. Afile photo

BEIJING (PTI): China's Shandong Airlines has said it plans to buy 15 Boeing passenger planes worth up to USD 1.2 billion amid fast-growing demand for air travel.

The planes will be delivered between 2014 and 2015, the company said in a statement.

The catalogue price for a Boeing 737-800 jet is between USD 75 million and USD 80 million.

The Chinese airline said the actual purchase price it pays will be less because it has been offered a discount.

The deal is yet to be discussed by company shareholders and still needs government approval, the statement added.

Airline traffic in China is expected to exceed 700 million passengers per year by 2020 and 1.5 billion by 2030, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said early this year.

Shandong Airlines has forecast its 2010 profit to be between 591 million yuan (USD 89 million) and 711 million yuan, up 96 per cent to 135 per cent from a year earlier, Xinhua news agency reported.