Dammam airport strike kills two as Houthis widen campaign
The Houthis claimed an attack on Dammam's King Fahd airport that killed two people and injured eight on October 21. Etihad and flydubai have extended Dammam suspensions, and Delta has postponed its Riyadh launch to March 2027.
The Houthis have claimed responsibility for an attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam on the night of October 21 that killed two people and injured eight, according to Saudi Arabia's General Authority of Civil Aviation. The dead were a Saudi citizen and an Indian national.
The injured were a Saudi citizen and seven foreign nationals from India, Yemen, Bangladesh and Nepal. The authority said it was assessing material damage and that flights resumed on the morning of October 22, but did not say what weapon was used or who was responsible.
The Houthis said they had also attacked the defence ministry in Riyadh and Saudi Aramco facilities in the Red Sea port of Yanbu. Saudi authorities had not confirmed either strike, and neither has been independently verified.
The energy ministry separately said air defences intercepted a drone aimed at a processing facility at Aramco's Shaybah oilfield, where falling debris killed two foreign workers. Reuters reported, citing sources, that Aramco asked employees to evacuate its headquarters in Dhahran, in the same province.
The strike extends a campaign that has so far centred on Riyadh. A ballistic missile attack on King Khalid International Airport on October 10 killed at least 12 people, and the airport only reopened on October 18.
Dammam is the main airport for the Eastern Province, the centre of the Saudi oil industry, which gives the attack a commercial weight beyond its passenger numbers. Many foreign airlines had already suspended Dammam alongside Riyadh after the attacks earlier this month, and some are now extending those suspensions.
Etihad has pushed its Dammam suspension to November 5 and flydubai to October 29, from October 24 for both, according to The National, while Lufthansa Group remains off the route through November 30 and KLM and SalamAir until October 31.
The disruption reaches well beyond the Gulf carriers' short-haul networks. Delta Air Lines, which had planned to launch its Atlanta–Riyadh service on October 23, had already pushed the start back to March 2027.
What to watch: whether the Gulf carriers extend suspensions past October 25, the start of the winter schedule, and whether the European Union Aviation Safety Agency widens its Saudi airspace bulletin to reflect attacks outside Riyadh.
