Seoul, Nov 21 (IANS): The number of flights in South Korea's Incheon International Airport, the gateway to Seoul, in next year's summer season is expected to exceed the pre-pandemic levels, authorities said on Monday.

Incheon International Airport Corp. said the increased flights scheduled for the 2023 summer season from end of March to end of October were decided at a recent slot conference organised by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) in Melbourne, reports Yonhap News Agency.

The Incheon airport was given 263,004 slots for the 2023 summer season, marking a surge of 265 per cent from 99,077 slots this year, the corporation said.

Compared with 233,650 slots assigned in 2019 prior to the outbreak of Covid-19, next year's figure still marks a rise of 12.5 per cent, it noted.

A slot refers to the departure or arrival time of an aircraft and the number of slot assignments refers to the number of times the aircraft is permitted to operate at an airport.