Riyadh airport faces 60% flight cancellations after strikes

King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh is expected to cancel about 60% of scheduled flights on Oct. 12, Deccan Herald reported, citing aviation analytics firm Cirium.

The expected disruption would be less severe than Sunday’s near-total halt, when 99.7% of scheduled flights were cancelled at the Saudi capital’s main airport, according to the Oct. 12 Deccan Herald article.

Deccan Herald reported that attacks from Yemen’s Houthis killed more than a dozen people over the weekend. The article said the airport remained closed on Sunday after one attack killed one person and injured nearly a dozen others.

The report also said a separate strike the previous day was claimed by the Houthis and killed 13 people, with more than 300 wounded. The casualty figures were not accompanied by a Saudi official statement in the article.

The report did not provide an absolute number of affected flights or a normal daily flight total for King Khalid International Airport. Its scale can therefore be measured from the reported cancellation shares: about 60% on Oct. 12 versus 99.7% on Sunday.

A social-media post embedded in the Deccan Herald article showed a video purporting to capture the moment of an attack at Riyadh’s airport as Umrah pilgrims prepared to board flights. The video could not be independently verified.

The immediate issue for airlines and passengers is whether scheduled service resumes at King Khalid International Airport on Oct. 12 after the near-total cancellation of Sunday flights.