FLAGSHIP carrier Air China Ltd. said yesterday it would set aside more than US$2 billion in 2007, mainly to buy Boeing and Airbus jets, as executives said they hoped the government would inject cash into the aviation sector.

But executives were quick to point out that they had received no formal word of such an injection, reported widely in Hong Kong and mainland media in past months, to amount to some 10 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion).

Air China will earmark 16.9 billion yuan for capital expenditure in 2007, of which 11 billion yuan would be used for fleet expansion. The figure is down slightly from 19.5 billion yuan in 2006.

Air China, the most profitable of the country’s three biggest airlines, which includes China Eastern Airlines Corp. and China Southern, intends to keep expanding its fleet.

It operated a fleet of 207 planes at the end of 2006, including 141 Boeing and 50 Airbus aircraft.

Executives welcomed news that the country was developing its own long-haul jet, hot on the heels of creating its own regional plane, the ARJ21.

(SD-Agencies)