Shares of Juneyao Airlines, a Shanghai-based private airline, experienced another soaring day Thursday after its debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange Wednesday.

It now rivals Spring Airlines as the most expensive airline stock listed on the Chinese mainland markets.

The stock marched to 17.71 yuan ($2.86) Thursday, up from 16.10 yuan on its first day of trading. The stock's IPO price was set at 11.18 yuan.

Starting operation in 2006, Juneyao Airlines was once a charter flight company under a dairy firm. In 2014, it filed its IPO application at the same time as budget carrier Spring Airlines, which went public in January with a $291 million IPO.

Spring Airlines' stock hit 134.93 yuan Thursday, nearly eight times the IPO price, and its value is far higher than AirAsia X, the largest budget airline in Asia.

According to the prospectus filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Juneyao Airlines, which has a registered capital of 500 million yuan, plans to raise 715 million yuan to buy seven A320s and two backup engines, adding 42 Airbus narrow-body aircraft connecting Shanghai to destinations such as Beijing, Hong Kong and Macao.

The prospectus said the net profits of Juneyao Airlines over the past three years were 229 million yuan, 339 million yuan and 415 million yuan. Its net profit soared to 267 million yuan in the first quarter of this year, up 163 percent from the same period a year ago, due to plummeting oil prices and rising demand during the Spring Festival holidays.

Unlike Spring Airlines, Juneyao Airlines targets the middle and high-end market, though the latter carrier also has a 78.9 percent stake in the Guangzhou-based, low-budget carrier 9Air, which started service at the end of 2014.

Insiders said the two private airlines operate differently. In the past three years, Juneyao Airlines' passenger load factor was about 84 to 86 percent, lower than 93 to 94 percent for Spring Airlines. But its income when flying one kilometer for one passenger was 0.62, higher than that of 0.43 for Spring Airlines.

However, Juneyao Airlines is still controlled by the Wang family, who retain most of the shares. Bloomberg reported that the three children of the deceased Wang Junyao will own 30 percent, with his oldest son owning the largest single stake of 27 percent, worth about 1.69 billion yuan.