King Fahd International Airport

King Fahd International Airport (Arabic: مطار الملك فهد الدولي; abbr. KFIA) (IATA: DMM, ICAO: OEDF), also known as Dammam International Airport or simply Dammam Airport or King Fahd Airport, is the international airport serving Dammam, Saudi Arabia. The airport is located 31 kilometres (19 miles) northwest of downtown Dammam and is named after the former King of Saudi Arabia, Fahd ibn Abdulaziz (1921–2005). The airport serves the entire Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia and is one of the four primary international airports in the kingdom.

King Fahd International Airport

مطار الملك فهد الدولي
Summary
Airport typePublic
OwnerGACA
OperatorDammam Airports Company
ServesDammam, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia
LocationNorthwestern portion of Dammam Governorate; 31 km (19 mi) northwest of downtown Dammam
Opened28 November 1999 (1999-11-28)
Hub for
Elevation AMSL72 ft / 22 m
Coordinates26°28′16.3″N 049°47′54.9″E
Websitekfia.gov.sa
Map
DMM/OEDF is located in Saudi Arabia
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Location of airport in Saudi Arabia
DMM/OEDF is located in Persian Gulf
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DMM/OEDF (Persian Gulf)
DMM/OEDF is located in Indian Ocean
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DMM/OEDF (Indian Ocean)
DMM/OEDF is located in Middle East
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DMM/OEDF (Middle East)
DMM/OEDF is located in West and Central Asia
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DMM/OEDF is located in Asia
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DMM/OEDF (Asia)
DMM/OEDF is located in Eurasia
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DMM/OEDF is located in Afro-Eurasia
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Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
16R/34L 13,123 4,000 Asphalt
16L/34R 13,123 4,000 Asphalt
Statistics (2016)
Passengers9,690,000+
Cargo (tons)138,870
Aircraft movements90,134

Formerly a US airbase used primarily during the Gulf War, the airport has been overseeing commercial operations since 28 November 1999 and has since expanded to provide connections to 43 destinations. Before King Fahd International, the primary airport serving the region was the much busier Dhahran International Airport, which has since been converted for military use and is now designated the King Abdulaziz Air Base. Since July 1, 2017, the airport has been operated and managed by the Dammam Airports Company (DACO).[2][3] Commercial transport was only halted once throughout the history of the airport when, on March 21, 2020, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) announced the suspension of all domestic and international travel both within and to and from the kingdom due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[4] Domestic operations were reinitiated on May 31, 2020,[5] and international operations resumed on May 17, 2021.[6]

The third largest airport in the kingdom by passenger volume, more than 10 million passengers use King Fahd International each year, and 37 airlines operate flights in and out of the airport. The airport serves as a hub to Saudia and Flynas. It previously served as a hub to the now defunct Sama airline. In addition to these airlines, Saudi Aramco Aviation, the airline operated by Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil giant, uses it to transport employees in and out of strategic locations such as Yanbu, Tanajib and Shaybah.[2]

The airport is served by two runways; both 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) long, and consists of three terminal buildings: the Passenger Terminal serves mainstream passengers, the Aramco Terminal is used by Aramco employees to board Saudi Aramco Aviation flights and the Royal Terminal is reserved for use by the Saudi royal family. The busiest route operated between Dammam and another city is to and from Dubai, with 70 weekly flights.

History
Top: A-10 Thunderbolt IIs parked on the taxiway of King Fahd Int'l Airport
Bottom: A MIM-104 Patriot missile battery near the airport. The terminal building and mosque can be seen in the background.

The airport is named for King Fahd (r. 1982–2005), under whose reign it was constructed and inaugurated. Design of the airport building began in 1976. The site master plan was created by architecture firm Yamasaki & Associates and Boeing and completed in 1977,[7] with construction beginning in 1983.[8] The basic infrastructure of the airport was complete by the end of 1990, which allowed the U.S-led coalition forces to use the airport during the Gulf War in early 1991 for the storage of military aircraft, including 144 A-10 Thunderbolt IIs, among other aircraft such as the AH-64 Apaches and CH-47 Chinooks of the 101st Airborne Division, before operations were transferred to the Ahmad al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait.

The General Authority of Civil Aviation of Saudi Arabia inaugurated the King Fahd International Airport and opened it to commercial traffic on 28 November 1999, and all airlines transferred their operations from the Dhahran International Airport, which had been in use until then. Dhahran International has since been converted for military usage and was designated the King Abdulaziz Air Base.

As part of the Saudi Vision 2030 and the National Transformation Program, King Fahd International was corporatized in July 2017 under the Dammam Airports Company (DACO), which operates and maintains the airport.[9] In an effort to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, all domestic and international flights were suspended until further notice on 21 March 2020. Following strict curfews and lowering in case numbers, domestic flights were allowed to operate once again on 31 May 2020. International flights were finally resumed on 18 May 2021.

Facilities
Interior of the passenger terminal

The airport is classified as Code E by the ICAO which means aircraft such as the Boeing 747-400 and A340-600 could be easily accommodated. It is practically possible for an A380 to use the airport, but this is not recommended, as, in order to accommodate such aircraft, an airport is required to be Code F; only the runways at Dammam Airport meet Code F requirements; the taxiways and gates do not.

Terminals

The six-story main terminal building has a total area of 327,000 m2 (3,520,000 sq ft). Approximately 247,500 m2 (2,664,000 sq ft) were built in the first phase, in addition to 11 fixed passenger boarding bridges serving 15 gates. The original design included 31 fixed boarding bridges. The departure terminal is equipped with several customer counters of which 66 were allocated to Saudia (now shared with flynas), 44 to foreign airlines, and the rest for customs and immigration.

King Fahd International Airport was the first Saudi airport to adopt duty-free stores. In addition to the spaces allocated to duty-free stores, the airport has a separate area for shops specializing in the sale of gifts and all passenger-related goods. This area includes restaurants, cafeterias, and banks, and is located on the arrivals level.

The private airline operated by Saudi Aramco, Saudi Aramco Aviation, operates out of the Aramco Terminal, providing connections to its employees to faraway company locations such as in Yanbu, Tanajib, Shaybah and Haradh, in addition to some remote pump stations, using their own fleet of Boeing 737s and Embraer ERJ-170LRs.

The Royal Terminal is reserved for the royal family of Saudi Arabia, government personnel, and official guests. It covers an area of 16,400 m2 (177,000 sq ft) and has four bridges linking the terminal to aircraft. It is luxuriously furnished and decorated, and includes extensively landscaped exteriors and grounds. Despite its specialized purpose, the terminal is rarely used by the royal family, who generally prefer to utilize a similar special terminal at King Abdulaziz Air Base.

Runways

The airport has two parallel runways with a length of 4,000 m (13,123 ft) each: 16L/34R and 16R/34L, in addition to taxiways parallel to the runways and a cross taxiway to connect the two runways. The two runways are separated by 2,146 m (7,041 ft). The east runway is generally used by Saudi Aramco while commercial airlines use the west one.

Ground transportation

The terminal can only be accessed via Route 605, a secondary expressway linking the cities of Khobar and Dammam in the south, and Qatif in the north; to the airport. Route 6466, a minor road and spur of Highway 40, links the highway to Route 605 and the airport. SAPTCO offers bus connections from Khobar and Dammam to the airport. Taxis are available at fixed prices to every major city and town in the kingdom, with private companies such as Careem, a subsidiary of Uber, providing similar services.

The total area of the parking complex is 176,752 m2 (1,902,540 sq ft), distributed among three covered floors, with a maximum capacity of 4,930 cars. Two open parking areas are available beside the rentals to accommodate additional cars.

Other facilities

The Airport Mosque was built on the roof of the car park and in the middle of a landscaped area of 46,200 m2 (497,292 ft²). The architecture of the mosque is an amalgamation of modern architecture with traditional Islamic architectural elements. The mosque can accommodate up to 2,000 worshippers and access to it can be easily gained from the passenger terminal through two enclosed, air-conditioned bridges equipped with moving belts, in addition to a third open bridge.

The airport has its own plant nursery with a total area of 215,579 m2 (2,320,470 sq ft), which encompasses three greenhouses and 36,400 square metres (392,000 sq ft) of green fields. The nursery supplies the airport gardens and planted areas with trees and plants. The control tower stands 85.5 m (281 ft) high. The height allows visibility of all operational parts of the airport.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger
AirlinesDestinations
Aegean Airlines Seasonal: Athens[10]
Air ArabiaAlexandria, Cairo,[11] Sharjah
Air CairoCairo
Air IndiaDelhi
Air India ExpressKozhikode, Mangalore, Thiruvananthapuram
AnadoluJetIstanbul–Sabiha Gökçen
Azerbaijan AirlinesBaku[12]
Biman Bangladesh AirlinesDhaka
EgyptairAlexandria, Cairo
EmiratesDubai–International
Ethiopian AirlinesAddis Ababa
Etihad AirwaysAbu Dhabi
flyadealAbha, Al Baha, Bisha, Cairo, Gassim, Ha'il, Jeddah, Jizan, Medina, Najran, Neom Bay, Riyadh, Ta'if
Seasonal: Tbilisi
flydubaiDubai–International
flynasAbha, Al Baha, Al-Ula, Arar, Bahrain, Baku, Cairo, Dubai–International, Gassim, Istanbul–Sabhia Gökçen, Jeddah, Jizan, Khartoum (suspended), Lahore,[13] Lucknow,[14] Medina, Mumbai, Najran, Riyadh, Sarajevo, Tabuk, Ta'if, Tbilisi, Trabzon, Yanbu
Seasonal: Batumi,[15] Salalah, Sharm El Sheikh, Tirana[16]
Gulf AirBahrain
Georgian AirwaysTbilisi
Himalaya AirlinesKathmandu[17]
IndiGoDelhi, Hyderabad, Kozhikode,[18] Lucknow, Mumbai
Jazeera AirwaysKuwait City[19]
KLMAmsterdam, Riyadh
Kuwait AirwaysKuwait City
LufthansaFrankfurt, Kuwait City
Middle East AirlinesBeirut
Nile AirCairo
Oman AirMuscat
Pakistan International AirlinesIslamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Sialkot
Pegasus AirlinesIstanbul–Sabiha Gökçen[20]
Seasonal: Trabzon[21]
Philippine AirlinesManila
Qatar AirwaysDoha[22]
Royal JordanianAmman–Queen Alia
SalamAirMuscat[23]
SaudiaJeddah, Neom Bay, Riyadh
SriLankan AirlinesColombo–Bandaranaike
Tarco AviationKhartoum (suspended)
Turkish AirlinesIstanbul
VistaraMumbai[24]
Wizz Air[25]Abu Dhabi, Budapest,[26] Larnaca,[26] Rome–Fiumicino, Vienna

Cargo
AirlinesDestinations
Aerotranscargo[27] Hong Kong, Sharjah
Air France Cargo Dubai–International, Hong Kong, Mumbai
Garuda Cargo Jakarta–Soekarno-Hatta
Cargolux Hong Kong, Luxembourg
DHL Aviation Dubai–International[28]
Emirates SkyCargo Dubai–Al Maktoum
Lufthansa Cargo Frankfurt, Sharjah
Saudia Cargo Amsterdam, Brussels, Dhaka, Frankfurt, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong
Turkish Cargo Istanbul, Nairobi–Jomo Kenyatta
Xiamen Air Zhengzhou

Statistics

At present, around 9.7 million passengers use King Fahd International Airport annually.[29]

Annual passenger traffic at DMM airport. See Wikidata query.
Statistics for King Fahd International Airport
YearTotal passengers % internationalPassenger growthTotal cargo (tons)Commercial aircraft movementsMovements growth
2001 2,542,00041%Increase 0.4%55,08823,312Decrease −2.5%
2002 2,578,00039%Increase 1.4%53,02923,281Decrease −0.1%
2003 2,613,00040%Increase 1.4%48,63423,308Increase 0.1%
2004 2,782,00041%Increase 6.5%48,06523,778Increase 2.0%
2005 3,013,00040%Increase 8.3%49,63324,457Increase 2.9%
2006 3,341,00043%Increase 10.9%59,61029,162Increase 19.2%
2007 4,092,00041%Increase 15.0%67,42748,653Increase 34.6%
2008 4,165,00047%Increase 1.1%97,59650,926Increase 3.9%
2009 4,422,00048%Increase 6.8%83,65251,166Increase 0.7%
2010 4,835,00052%Increase 10.1%83,42656,156Increase 10.8%
2011 5,531,00056%Increase 15.3%82,83262,060Increase 11.9%
2012 6,422,00056%Increase 16.5%103,42167,390Increase 9.6%
2013 7,311,00055%Increase 19.1%121,65572,897Increase 9.3%
2014 8,248,00054%Increase 12.8%115,83079,284Increase 9.8%
2015 9,407,00053%Increase 14.0%95,32184,803Increase 7.8%
2016 9,690,00053%Increase 3.0%138,87090,134Increase 6.3%
Busiest international routes at King Fahd International Airport (by number of flights weekly)
RankCityNumber of flights
1 Dubai,  United Arab Emirates 70
2 Cairo,  Egypt 34
3 Abu Dhabi,  United Arab Emirates 28
4 Bahrain,  Bahrain 28
5 Delhi,  India 21
6 Sharjah,  United Arab Emirates 18
7 Muscat,  Oman 16
8 Mumbai,  India 14
9 Istanbul,  Turkey 14

Records
  • King Fahd International has been cited as the largest airport in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records.[30] At 776 square kilometres (300 mi2), the property is larger than the neighbouring country of Bahrain. The official website of the airport reports a utilized area of 3,675 hectares (9,080 acres), or 36.75 square kilometres, making the airport the sixth-largest in the world.[31]
  • One of the world's shortest international flights is operated between King Fahd International in Dammam and Bahrain International in Manama, covering a distance of 76 km (47 mi); it takes just 45 minutes from gate to gate.[32]
  • In May 2009, the Antonov An-225 Mriya, the world's largest aircraft, landed at the airport en route from Ukraine to Tanzania.

Accidents and incidents

See also

References
  1. flynas hubs, retrieved 25 March 2018
  2. "About King Fahd International Airport | King Fahd International Airport". kfia.gov.sa. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  3. "Where are the largest airports in the world?". Flight-Delayed.co.uk. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  4. "Saudi Arabia suspending domestic flights, mass land transport in fight against COVID-19". Arab News. 20 March 2020. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  5. "Notice setting date for Saudi international flights 'is bogus'". Arab News. 12 August 2020. Retrieved 31 August 2020.
  6. "Saudi airports, airlines resume international flights after COVID-19 suspension". 18 May 2021.
  7. KFIA project summary, retrieved 29 December 2011
  8. King Fahd International Airport, Airport Technology, retrieved 29 December 2011
  9. "About Us | DACO". Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  10. "Flight schedule".
  11. "Air Arabia Egypt launches new Cairo-Dammam service". Trade Arabia. Retrieved 10 April 2022.
  12. "Azerbaijan Airlines Expands Saudi Arabia Network in Sep 2023". AeroRoutes. 27 July 2023. Retrieved 30 July 2023.
  13. "flynas plans Pakistan launch in Feb 2018". airlineroute. 17 January 2018. Retrieved 18 January 2018.
  14. Liu, Jim. "flynas W19 network expansion". Routesonline. Retrieved 13 September 2019.
  15. Liu, Jim (26 February 2020). "flynas S20 Network Expansion". Routesonline.
  16. "flynas to launch 10 new seasonal services in Jun-2023". CAPA. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
  17. "Welcome to Himalaya Airlines-Press". www.himalaya-airlines.com. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 25 October 2017.
  18. "Flight Schedule". IndiGo. Retrieved 25 March 2023.
  19. Liu, Jim. "Jazeera resumes Dammam service from late-Dec 2019". Routesonline. Retrieved 17 December 2019.
  20. "Turkish LLC Pegasus launches flights to Muscat and Dammam". ftnnews.com. 20 June 2018. Retrieved 19 October 2018.
  21. "PEGASUS NS23 NETWORK ADDITIONS – 16APR23". aeroroutes.com. 18 April 2023.
  22. "Qatar and Saudi Arabia to resume direct flights". Reuters. 9 January 2021.
  23. Liu, Jim. "Salam Air schedules new routes in Nov 2019". Routesonline. Retrieved 13 November 2019.
  24. "Vistara commences services to Dammam". Zawya. 2 March 2023. Retrieved 2 March 2023.
  25. Godinho, Varun. "Wizz Air to launch flights between Saudi Arabia and Rome, Vienna". Business Traveller. Retrieved 27 June 2022.
  26. "Wizz Air signals Saudi expansion with 20 new routes".
  27. "Home". Aerotranscargo.
  28. "Flightradar24: Live Flight Tracker - Real-Time Flight Tracker Map".
  29. "Statistics 2016". General Authority of Civil Aviation KSA.
  30. Craig Glenday. Guinness World Records 2013. Ed. Random House LLC, 2013. ISBN 9780345547118. P. 320
  31. Data Project Data. King Fahd International Airport. KFIA, Dammam, Eastern Province – Saudi Arabia. Total Airport Area 77,600 Hectares; Developer Areas; Total: 4,265 Hectares; Airport: 3,675 Hectares; Construction ; Support/Utility Plants: 51 Hectares; Community :80 Hectares
  32. "What Are The World's Shortest International Routes?". Simple Flying. 26 April 2020. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  33. Ranter, Harro. "ASN Aircraft accident Boeing 747-412F (SCD) TC-MCT Dammam-King Fahad International Airport (DMM)". aviation-safety.net. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  34. "Accident: ACT B744 at Dammam and Jeddah on Feb 1st 2020, tail strike on departure". avherald.com. Retrieved 1 September 2020.
  35. "Location of the Airport". world-airport-codes. Archived from the original on 21 January 2010.
  36. "Destinations Worldwide". theAirDB.

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