East Star Airlines head goes missing
China - Air China's acquisition bid of East Star Airlines hung in the balance after East Star chairman went missing, state media reported.
An Air China news department official told the China Securities Journal that the merger offer had yet to receive a reply from East Star, a private airline that had been grounded because of unpaid debts.
The official securities newspaper said an anonymous letter from East Star revealed that its chairman, Lan Shili, could not be accounted for.
Smaller private airlines are suffering from slowing air traffic, and are not privy to cash injections from the government to help them ride out the slump. China Eastern and China Southern in December said they were to receive a total of 10 billion yuan (US$1.5 billion) in cash injections from the government.
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