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Nine Houthi strikes targeted five Saudi airports between 5 and 11 October, leaving 19 people dead and more than 300 injured, alongside material damage and widespread air traffic disruption.
International and regional bodies condemned the attacks, while several foreign airlines suspended flights to the Kingdom or altered their operational schedules, coinciding with aviation safety alerts issued by European authorities regarding Saudi airspace.
Riyadh and Dammam Targeted
King Khalid International Airport in the capital, Riyadh, bore the brunt of the assault, being targeted in five separate attacks that forced a temporary suspension of operations.
The check-in area at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. Photo: Markus Mainka/Shutterstock.com.
Following Houthi strikes on King Khalid Airport last summer—during which the group warned airlines against using Saudi airspace, designating it a military operations zone—the latest wave of attacks on the airport began with two strikes on Thursday, 8 October. These targeted airport facilities and a Saudia aircraft, killing three Saudi nationals, injuring individuals of various nationalities, and causing material damage.
Saudi Arabia’s General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) said in a statement issued on Friday that competent authorities responded to both incidents in accordance with established procedures and that operational activities resumed following the strikes.
The attacks continued on Saturday, 10 October, when the airport came under a new strike that killed 12 people, injured 309 others, and prompted another temporary halt to operations.
On Sunday afternoon, a Pakistani resident was killed, and 11 others were injured in an attack targeting King Khalid Airport in Riyadh, which also resulted in material damage. King Fahd International Airport in Dammam was targeted in a separate attack on Sunday evening.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea announced that the group had conducted four operations within 24 hours using ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones. He specified that the strikes targeted Riyadh Airport in three phases, as well as Dammam Airport and two facilities belonging to the oil giant Aramco. Sarea had previously warned aviation companies against operating in Saudi airports and airspace.
Three Southern Airports Attacked
Flight disruptions were not confined to Riyadh but extended to airports in the south of the Kingdom. Saudi authorities closed Jizan and Najran airports until 15 October and restricted nighttime operations at Abha Airport. These measures followed strikes on Jizan and Najran airports on 5 October, which injured three people and caused material damage, as well as an attack on Abha International Airport in the southwest of the Kingdom on 6 October, which killed two women and injured 28 people.
King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Airport in Jizan. Handout: Saudipedia / Ministry of Media – Saudi Arabia.
Airlines Ground Saudi Flights
These security developments directly affected the operational decisions of several international carriers, leading them to suspend flights to multiple destinations within Saudi Arabia or to modify their schedules as they reassessed the risks of serving Saudi airports and navigating regional airspace.
UAE carriers, including flydubai, Etihad Airways, and Emirates, cancelled several flights to Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam, and Madinah until 14 October. Meanwhile, Kuwait Airways and Jazeera Airways reported cancellations and disruptions to their services to and from Riyadh, and EgyptAir suspended its flights to King Khalid International Airport pending the resumption of operations.
KLM also announced that it would not operate flights to Riyadh, Dammam, and Dubai until 31 October, extending a previously implemented suspension.
According to Reuters, Lufthansa Group suspended its flights to Riyadh until 16 October, while Indian carriers—including Air India, IndiGo, and Akasa Air—announced suspensions or service adjustments for varying periods.
In a related context, the US Embassy in Riyadh advised its citizens to avoid King Khalid Airport and its surrounding areas, adding that “US government personnel working in Saudi Arabia are required to obtain special authorization to use King Khalid International Airport, as well as the airports in Jeddah and Dammam.”
For its part, the British Embassy in Saudi Arabia advised its nationals to avoid all Saudi airports except Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz Airport in Madinah, which remains designated as a safe zone.
EASA Expands Safety Warnings
On 9 October, the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) expanded the scope of its safety warnings for Saudi airspace, in light of escalating risks from missile and drone attacks.
The risks prompting operational assessment involve the potential exposure of civil aircraft to missiles or interception debris, as well as the risk of misidentification in an environment featuring active military operations.
These risks are not confined to the immediate vicinity of the targeted airport; they can also influence decisions regarding the use of nearby air routes, the evaluation of diversion airport suitability, and airlines’ ability to operate flights according to their regular schedules.
OPSGROUP, an aviation risk intelligence organisation, issued a “Do Not Fly” advisory for airspace over Saudi Arabia on Friday, citing the continuing threat of missile strikes.
Warnings of this nature prompt operators to review their security assessments and coordinate with aviation authorities and air navigation service providers (ANSPs), while making decisions to reroute or suspend specific flights whenever safety considerations demand.
These developments highlight the difficulties facing airport security and operational continuity in a tense regional environment, where the impact of strikes extends beyond immediate physical damage to influence flight operations, route risk assessments, and passenger and fleet management.
Stay informed. Get the latest aviation and space news from the Arab world on WhatsApp and Telegram as soon as it is published, or subscribe to our newsletter for a weekly round-up. You can also add us to your preferred sources to see more of our stories in Google Search.
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/* Accessibility quick fixes (WCAG 2.2 AA test, 27 Oct 2026). Safe to switch off.
1 skip link · 2 form autofill · 3 language switcher name · 4 dark-mode button name and state
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/* Aljaweea newsletter form (form 10): on Arabic pages, pre-select the Arabic edition.
2 Nov 2026 (Claude, runbook 8.82). Decision D-05 asks for the page language to be pre-selected through
the WPML translation of the field's default value; WPML does not offer that value for translation,
so this is the flagged fallback. The stored values stay "English" / "العربية" for the FluentCRM tag routing.
Rollback: set this snippet to Draft (the Arabic page then pre-selects English). */
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/* Aljaweea forms: let Fluent Forms show its own error messages.
2 Nov 2026 (Claude, runbook 8.86; finding V-1 of the 8.85 test). Without this, the browser's own email check
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Arabic pages for most visitors), so our message from the forms standard (1.4) never appears.
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Rollback: set this snippet to Draft. */
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