Spanish travel group, Marsans, aims to have Peru's newest airline, Aerolineas del Peru, flying by mid-August and hopes the Peruvian government will take a stake to become the Andean nation's flag carrier, Marsans' subsidiary, Aerolineas Argentinas, said on Thursday.

Betting on Peru's prominence as an adventure tourism destination, the new airline will start with three planes flying Peru's main domestic routes, including the most lucrative to Cuzco, the gateway to the fabled Inca citadel Machu Picchu, which attracts 500,000 tourists a year.

He did not specify the other routes.

"We want to have 12 planes in Peru at the end of our first year of operation," Aerolineas Argentinas Chairman Antonio Mata told a news conference. "The idea is to build up the fleet to eventually fly within Latin America," he added.

The airline will have start-up costs of USD$10 million, but Mata declined to say how much Marsans would invest in Peru in the long term. Marsans has 80 planes worldwide, he added.

Mata said Peru's President Alejandro Toledo wants Aerolineas del Peru to be the country's flag carrier and that the state was interested in buying a stake in the carrier.

"We would really like that," Mata said. Transport Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

Lan Peru, a unit of Chile's LAN Airlines, is the market leader in Peru, but a recent in-flight video portraying Lima as a dilapidated city strewn with waste has turned many Peruvians against the company.

The government is keen to promote other airlines, including its own state-run TANS, after local carrier Aero Continente was grounded indefinitely last year over safety.

Aerolineas del Peru's biggest hurdle is to find a Peruvian investor to buy into the venture. By law, the airline must have a Peruvian group as majority shareholder to start up. Those investors would then reduce their stake to 30 percent, allowing Marsans to hold a 70 percent share, Mata said.

"We are in talks with various Peruvian investors. None are in the airline business. We are confident we can reach an agreement within 90 days," said Fernando Dozo, an adviser for Marsans in Argentina.

The airline plans eventually to list on the Lima Stock Exchange, Dozo added.

Mata said Aerolineas del Peru would target routes neglected by other airlines and link Peruvian cities to major destinations such as Miami and Rio without going through Lima.

"People in Puerto Maldonado (in Peru's southern jungle) have to go back to Lima to fly to nearby Brazil. We're going to change that," he said.