South Korea's No. 1 air carrier Korean Air Lines Co. said Sunday that it has signed a 400 billion-won ($333.5 million) deal with the military procurement agency to mass-produce reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles as part of the government's plan to build up its aerial mission capability.

Under the contract with the Defense Acquisition Program Administration signed last year, Korean Air will mass-produce the reconnaissance drones from 2016 to 2020, the company said.

Detailed terms of the contract were not disclosed.

The military earlier announced a plan to deploy UAVs to Army and Marine divisions near the border with North Korea on search and reconnaissance missions, following a series of North Korean drones found near the western and eastern border areas.

Korean Air completed the development of a UAV in 2014 for the first time in South Korea.

The aircraft is about 4.2 meters in width and 3.4 m in length, capable of making sudden nosedives with an automatic tracking system.

"Nearly 95 percent of the aircraft's components were made by South Korean suppliers," a Korean Air official said. (Yonhap)