CHINA Eastern Airlines and Shanghai Airport Authority yesterday agreed to cooperate to lift investment in operations and boost the number of flights at Pudong International Airport.

Shanghai-based China Eastern will raise capacity, launch more international routes and add flight frequencies to major domestic cities to improve Pudong airport's connectivity, under a strategic deal the two partners signed yesterday.

"A direct flight from Shanghai to Rome will be launched next year and more airlines are expected to begin operations" at Pudong, said Ma Xulun, executive director of China Eastern. "By 2017, we shall increase the proportion of international flights from 30 percent to around 40 percent."

The two partners will raise investment in operations by 13 percent annually in the next five years and lift the number of flights by 77 percent.

The airline also plans to cooperate with Shanghai's high-speed rail system to improve transport links and set up city terminals in major destinations within 300 kilometers from the city to facilitate check-in, Ma said.

They will also optimize procedures to cut minimum connecting time to 80 minutes for international flight transit and 60 minutes for domestic ones.

The cooperation will boost Pudong airport's ability to handle an expected 65 million passengers and 4.75 million tons of cargo annually by 2015 while Hongqiao International Airport, the smaller local airport that handles mainly domestic flights, is set to handle 35 million passengers and 750,000 tons of cargo in the same period.

In the first eight months of this year, the city's two airports handled 47 million passengers, up 25.5 percent from a year earlier, and 2.43 million tons of cargo, a jump of 37.6 percent annually, according to the airport authority, operator of the two airports.

"It is estimated passenger turnover will reach 72 million this year, rising 26.3 percent from a year earlier, and cargo turnover will rise 17.4 percent to 3.5 million tons," said Li Derun, president of the airport authority.