Korea Aerospace Industries said Thursday its net income more than doubled in 2019 from a year earlier, helped by a local project that replaces aging fighter jets in the Air Force.

KAI, the country's sole aircraft manufacturer, reported a net profit of 130 billion won ($109 million) last year, compared with a profit of 55.5 billion won a year ago, the company said in a statement.

"On top of the KF-X project, the company delivered eight T-50 TH advanced trainer jets to Thailand in July last year," a company spokeswoman said.

Operating profit jumped 88 percent to 275.2 billion won last year from the previous year's 146.4 billion won. Sales rose 11 percent to 3.1 trillion won from 2.79 trillion won during the same period, the statement said.

In 2020, KAI aims to achieve 3.3 trillion won in sales by winning orders worth 4.2 trillion won.

"To achieve the sales goal, we will focus on receiving orders of the TA-50 lead-in fighter trainer from the Korean military this year," she said. (Yonhap)