ULYANOVSK, Central Russia -- Russia's biggest cargo airline, Volga-Dnepr, said it was holding preliminary talks with a number of firms to lease up to four aircraft which could be Boeing B-747s.


"None of our plans are concrete yet, but we are involved in talks to lease Boeing B-747s from Western companies," deputy financial director Alexander Bashkov told reporters during a recent visit to the plant.


He stressed it was too early to predict the outcome of negotiations, but said that Volga-Dnepr's long-term aim was to move into scheduled cargo flights with smaller loads as well as the huge ones it shifts now.


In a separate interview with journalists at the firm's main base at Ulyanovsk, 800 kilometers east of Moscow, commercial director Grigory Zelikovich said the airline was interested in leasing up to four planes by the end of 1995.


Company president Alexei Isaikin vowed to increase Volga-Dnepr's market share, particularly in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and the United States.


Volga-Dnepr made its first chartered flight to China earlier this month and plans to start scheduled flights there and to Houston, Texas in the near future.


Bashkov also said British Aerospace was in preliminary talks to jointly produce Jetstream J-31 and J-61 passenger aircraft at the non-privatized joint stock aircraft plant in Ulyanovsk, which is Volga-Dnepr's main shareholder.


The plant, JSC Aviastar, built Volga-Dnepr's six massive Antonov An-124-100 Ruslan cargo planes, and owns 49 percent of the airline's stock.


Volga-Dnepr, which has a joint venture with British firm Heavy Lift Cargo Airlines, operates 10 aircraft and has carved out a significant niche in the outsize cargo market with its Ruslans, which can transport loads up to 120 tons.


Last year it carried 35,655 tons around the world, an increase of 6.2 percent over 1992, taking in $41 million dollars, up 35.3 percent. The company counts itself among the world's top 10 cargo airlines. It is Volga-Dnepr's giant planes which are often used by the United Nations to shift aid supplies to emergency zones such as Rwanda and Bosnia.


Bashkov told journalists he expected sales revenue to grow by 35 percent in 1994. He said profits so far this year stood at about $10 million before tax and dividend payouts, and he predicted a 25 percent profit increase for the year.


Volga-Dnepr is exempt from some taxes and has five years to start paying others under a 1992 tax credit deal, Bashkov said.


In its first, Russian-standard accounting in 1992 -- the firm was formed in September 1990 and the joint venture a year later -- auditors Ernst & Young put Volga-Dnepr's net profits at about $25 million, on the basis that they paid no tax.


The company was formed mainly by Aviastar, which paid for its shares with a Ruslan, aircraft engine maker MotorSich, and two Ukrainian firms -- the Antonov design bureau and the Aviation Industrial Union, which makes aircraft equipment and systems.