The shareholders of airline Air Macau Thursday unanimously approved the company's capital increase to 442 million patacas, said Zheng Yan, the chairman of Macau's flagship airline.

The increase was carried out by issuing 420,420 new shares with a unit value of 100 patacas and a premium of 1,565 patacas, and was totally subscribed by the Macau government which, having spent 700 million patacas (US$87.5 million) on this operation, saw its stake in the airline increase from 5 percent to 21 percent, making it the second-largest shareholder.

Air China continues to have a majority stake in Air Macau, but its 80.6 percent stake (before the capital increase) will be proportionally adjusted to the new investment made by the government as will be the case for Sociedade de Turismo e Diversões de Macau (STDM), which so far had a stake of 14 percent, and to other small shareholders.

This is the second time Air Macau has restructured its capital since 2009. The first operation was carried out to prevent the airline's bankruptcy.

Air Macau, which has a fleet of 14 aircraft plans to start renewing its fleet by replacing two Airbus A321s it currently leases from other companies.

Air Macau posted profit of 231.8 million patacas in 2010.