Korea’s leading flag carrier Korean Air plans to join a bidding race to acquire the nation’s sole aircraft maker Korea Aerospace Industries, industry sources said Tuesday.

The company has already secured 1 trillion won ($900 million) for the potential acquisition, said Cho Yang-ho, chairman of Hanjin Group, which owns Korean Air, in a recent interview with a local vernacular news daily.

A shareholders’ committee of KAI, consisting of state-run financial firm Korea Finance Corporation, Samsung Techwin, Hyundai Motor and Doosan Group, recently announced it will sell off their 41.75 percent stake in the company within the year.

The stakes for sale are estimated to be worth about 1.4 trillion won. The bidding is expected to open on Aug. 31 and letters of intent will be received until Sept. 16.

The KAI has decided to sell only 15 percent of the 26.4 percent stake it owns, considering the defense industry is a part of the public service.

KAI shareholders had attempted to sell the financially troubled aircraft maker twice, in 2010 and 2011, but failed to find a proper bidder amid fierce resistance from the labor union.

The fresh move by Korean Air comes after its chairman Cho expressed willingness to acquire the KAI recently in a bid to seek positive synergy with the nation’s largest air carrier that also produces military aircraft.

“Rather than competing against each other within the small domestic market, we need to create synergy to become the largest aircraft maker in Asia within 10 years,” he said in the interview published on Tuesday.

He said he is especially interested in the KAI engineers who have experience in aircraft manufacturing, adding that some international firms have also proposed to join the bidding as well. He did not elaborate on their names.

But some market observers raised the possibility that the KAI sales may be delayed to next year in consideration of the December presidential election and opposition from KAI’s union to the privatization plan.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)