SPRING Airlines, China's first budget carrier, plans to list in October next year, with Shanghai as its preferred first choice, its chairman Wang Zhenghua said yesterday.

The Shanghai-based airline signed an agreement with Tencent (QQ) to adopt its online payment system. The pact is expected to help Spring Airlines attract more clients from QQ, whose users are young people sensitive to travel costs.

"We will start trading in October next year when the market will turn bull again, I think," Wang said during a press conference to announce the deal. He, however, did not elaborate but he said previously that the company will probably be listed in Shanghai.

Spring Airlines, whose lowest ticket price used to be one yuan, made a net profit of 70 million yuan (US$10 million) last year, a surge of 250 percent from a year earlier. Its revenue took off 150 percent to 1.23 billion yuan.

Around 69 percent of its revenue came from e-commerce as the carrier offered 199-yuan and 99-yuan tickets which could be bought only via its Website or by mobile phones.

The cooperation will improve the carrier's online sales system and provide clients with high-security and more convenient services, according to Martin Lau, Tencent's president.

According to the pact, Tencent will provide Spring Airlines with a CRM (customer relationship management) system to better analyze and make use of online databases.

The newly adopted Chinese vacation system, which gives employees paid annual leave and provides more public holidays, will also boost the carrier's income, according to industry analysts.

Spring Airlines carried 2.35 million passengers in the past year, 62 percent of whom took business trips.