SHANGHAI, Mar 09, 2010 (SinoCast Daily Business Beat via COMTEX) --
China Eastern Airlines (SHSE: 600115, SEHK: 0670) is to be a full member of an international aviation alliance as of this April end, indicating the flights of China Eastern and Shanghai Airlines will integrate.

The new company, after the merger of the two air carriers, is expected to see profit expand by CNY 1 billion to CNY 1.5 billion, according to China Eastern chairman Liu Shaoyong.

The combination of China Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airlines will help Shanghai further step up the local aviation industry consolidation and build itself into an aviation hub. In a move to allure more passengers, the newborn has launched flights linking the Shanghai Pudong New Area with some central, southern, and eastern Chinese cities like Nanchang, Hefei, Nanjing, and Ningbo.

China Eastern is to better business structure, resources structure and debt structure this year. In the meanwhile, the company will make efforts to gained more capital injection and rope in strategic investors and finance investors, beating asset-liability ratio to below 85 percent.

Source: www.morningpost.com.cn (March 09, 2010)