JINAN: China`s Shandong Airlines has announced that it plans to purchase 15 Boeing 737-800 passenger jets as the country`s air travel market grows.

Worth up to 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, the planes will be delivered between 2014 and 2015, a company statement posted on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange website said.

The catalogue price for a B737-800 jet is between 75 million and 80 million dollars. 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 (about 89 million U.S. dollars) and 711 million yuan, up 96 percent to 135 percent from a year earlier.