Qatar Airways said on Sunday that it had leased six Airbus planes from a leading commercial and consumer finance company to meet its rising passenger demand.

The company had leased one A320 and five A321-200s from U.S.- based Commercial Investment Trust (CIT) Group Inc., and the planes would be delivered in 2007 and 2008, Qatar Airways said in a statement.

"Qatar Airways is growing at a phenomenal rate and, in order to meet our expansion plans, we have looked carefully at ways to boost our fleet size," Akbar A Baker, the carrier's chief executive, said in the statement.

The lease was also confirmed by CIT on its website.

CIT Group Inc., a company with more than 68 billion U.S. dollars in assets, is one of the world's largest aerospace financing and leasing companies.

State-run Qatar Airways, which operates an all-Airbus fleet of 49 planes to 70 destinations worldwide, plans to more than double its size to 110 jets by 2015.

Neither of the companies reveal the value of the deal.

The Middle East is home to some of the world's fastest growing airlines. Passenger traffic in the region rose by 6.4 percent in the first seven months of 2006.

(Xinhua News Agency September 25, 2006)