New | China’s Juneyao Airline soars in Shanghai trading debut

Juneyao Airlines, a Shanghai-based private airline, surged by the daily trading limit on Wednesday as it debuted on the Shanghai Stock Exchange as mainland China’s sixth listed airline.

Juneyao hit 16.1 yuan as soon as trading opened, rising the maximum 44 per cent allowed for new stocks from its initial public offering price of 11.18 yuan per share. Its offer of 68 million shares helped the company raise 760 million yuan.

Founded and controlled by the Juneyao Group, which has businesses in education, food, high technology investment, Juneyao Airlines has been flying since 2006 and currently has a fleet of 42 Airbus A320 narrowbody planes, 13 of which are self-owned.

It flies more than 70 routes from Shanghai, including to Taiwan, Thailand, Korea and Japan.

Juneyao is China’s second private airline to float following Spring Airlines’s listing in January, which has risen more than 600 per cent times since then. Air China, China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines and Hainan Airlines are all partly owned by the state.

It also has a low-cost subsidiary, Guangzhou-based 9 Air, which started operation in December with three Boeing B737s.