China Eastern Airlines swung to a net profit in the first half of this year on a robust demand for travel during the Shanghai World Expo while a stronger yuan also helped, joining the country's two other major airlines in reporting positive results in the first six months.

The carrier's profit jumped 49.73 percent from a year earlier to 1.94 billion yuan (US$285 million), and its revenue soared 92.23 percent to 33.64 billion yuan, it said in a statement to the Shanghai Stock Exchange yesterday.

Acquiring its smaller rival Shanghai Airlines and tapping the demand created by the World Expo have helped China Eastern, the country's second-biggest carrier, post solid growth in passenger numbers and freight traffic.

The airline flew 30.12 million passengers from January to June - a rise of 44.89 percent from a year earlier - and carried 719,000 tons of cargo, up an annual 73.94 percent. The Shanghai-based carrier achieved 26.37 billion yuan in revenue, up 76.37 percent from a year earlier, and its cargo revenue surged 171.11 percent annually to 4.24 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, the appreciation in the yuan also benefitted China Eastern as it made a currency gain of 156 million yuan because the firmer yuan cut the value of dollar-denominated debts incurred from buying Boeing and Airbus planes.

"The company will develop faster amid the rising aviation market in China and a recovering global economy," said Mao Ang, an analyst at Galaxy Securities Research. "We expect China Eastern's net income will total 3.16 billion yuan this year, 3.4 billion yuan next year and 3.87 billion yuan in 2012."

China Southern Airlines, the country's largest carrier by fleet, saw an over 50-fold rise in net profit in the first half to 2.08 billion yuan from 38 million yuan a year earlier.

Profit of Air China, the flagship international carrier, soared an annual 60.44 percent to 4.7 billion yuan in the first half.