China Eastern to buy 50 Airbus airliners

HONG KONG: China Eastern Airlines said Thursday it had signed an agreement with the Europe-based Airbus aviation consortium to buy 50 A320 airliners with a list price of 3.22 billion dollars.

China Eastern said in an announcement to the Hong Kong stock exchange the aircraft would be delivered in stages from 2012 to 2015 and would expand its capacity by 14.39 percent, or by 11.24 percent including the fleet of its Shanghai Airlines subsidiary.