Riyadh’s main international airport seems set to remain closed for most of this week after Yemen’s Houthis struck it over the weekend and kept pressing Saudi targets on Monday. Saudi Arabia’s Civil Aviation General Authority said on Monday, October 12, that it had extended the suspension of operations at King Khalid International Airport so crews could finish procedures “to ensure the safety and operational readiness of the airport’s facilities,” Reuters reports via Dawn and Al Monitor, and Anadolu Agency carries the same civil-aviation wording. Al Monitor, citing a Notice to Airmen and Flightradar24, says the airport stays closed until 2100 GMT on October 17; the Guardian writes that authorities suspended all flights to and from the airport until next Saturday. King Khalid ranks as Saudi Arabia’s second-busiest airport after Jeddah, those outlets note.
The closure follows two deadly weekend strikes that outlets attribute to the Houthis. On Saturday, a strike on a passenger terminal killed 13 people and wounded more than 300, Anadolu Agency, Reuters via Dawn and Al Monitor, and the Guardian report; Anadolu Agency gives the wounded figure as 309. On Sunday afternoon, an unidentified projectile struck Terminal 4, killing a Pakistani resident and injuring 11 others, Anadolu Agency reports; Dawn and Al Monitor say Sunday’s attack killed one person and injured nearly a dozen. The Saudi-led coalition accused the Houthis of the Saturday attack and called it a “full-fledged war crime,” Anadolu Agency reports. Saudi state media released CCTV of the Saturday blast showing passengers under falling masonry and smoke, Dawn and the Guardian report. This desk could not independently confirm the tolls or the attacker’s identity beyond what the cited outlets carry.
Airlines and regulators moved as the airport stayed dark. Lufthansa Group canceled all flights to Riyadh until October 16, Air France-KLM extended its Riyadh suspension through the end of the month, and Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways extended cancellations that Al Monitor says affected routes into Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam, Reuters reporting via Al Monitor and Dawn shows. Gulf Air canceled flights to and from Riyadh through October 17, Anadolu Agency and the Guardian report. Flightradar24 said the Oct. 17 closure window affects nearly 700 flights a day, Anadolu Agency reports; Cirium put Sunday cancellations at King Khalid at 99.7% of scheduled flights, Dawn reports, and Cirium put cancellations across all Saudi airports at 46.4%, Al Monitor reports. The US Federal Aviation Administration advised carriers on Sunday to exercise caution when flying to or over Saudi Arabia, Al Monitor and Dawn report; EU aviation body EASA had widened a Saudi airspace warning on Friday, citing missile and drone attacks, Al Monitor reports. Delta Air Lines delayed planned Atlanta–Riyadh service from late October until March 2027, Al Monitor reports.
Houthi pressure did not stop at the weekend. The Guardian reports that more missiles hit Saudi cities on Monday and that the group has also targeted Khamis Mushait and King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. Al Monitor says the Houthis claimed a ballistic-missile attack on Riyadh’s airport late Monday, shortly after Saudi Arabia said it had intercepted and destroyed a ballistic missile fired toward the capital. Saudi energy minister Abdulaziz bin Salman told the WPC Energy Conference in Riyadh that “fear has no place in the Saudi lexicon,” the Guardian reports, as the kingdom pressed ahead with the event even as some oil executives skipped it or joined online. Aramco chief executive Amin Nasser said no nation can safeguard regional energy supplies alone, the Guardian reports.
Diplomacy and threats ran in parallel. Houthi political bureau member Mohammed Al Bukhaiti told AFP, according to the Guardian: “If the US becomes involved in the aggression against Yemen, we will not deliberate over the decision to respond, rather, there will be a swift and painful response targeting the US and all its interests in the region,” after Trump said at the weekend that he might “look at” joining Saudi strikes. Bukhaiti also warned employees at Saudi oil facilities and airports to stay away, calling those sites “legitimate targets,” the Guardian reports. The same piece says Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi spoke to Saudi foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan about possible Iranian mediation, and that Bukhaiti claimed Riyadh floated short truces that the Houthis rejected. The Guardian says a UN Security Council meeting on Tuesday looks set to debate labeling the Houthis a foreign terrorist organization. Inside Yemen, the Guardian cites fighting around Taiz and Houthi claims of 124 Saudi raids on Sunday; this desk treats those battlefield figures as single-outlet claims.
Saudi officials have launched what regional officials described to AP as a probe into how air defenses failed to stop the barrage, though this desk could not open the AP page directly (curl returned 403) and relies on secondary summaries of that angle. The Guardian says Saudi officials have opened an urgent review of stretched air defenses and that schools and some offices advised remote work. This desk could not verify a primary civil-aviation PDF, primary Houthi statement pages, or an independent passenger-toll audit beyond the outlet figures above. Earlier Seems News stories covered the Saturday death toll and Sunday’s Pakistani fatality; this page focuses on Monday’s extended closure and the airline response.
Correction · Oct 12, 2026, 9:09 PM PT: An earlier version credited the EU aviation body EASA’s Friday Saudi-airspace warning to both Al Monitor (Reuters) and Dawn. The Dawn copy of the Reuters story carries only the FAA caution, so this desk now credits the EASA warning to Al Monitor (Reuters) only, and the FAA caution to Al Monitor and Dawn. The earlier version also said EASA cited missile and drone risk; Al Monitor says the warning cited missile and drone attacks.
