The world’s largest airport—King Fahd International Airport (DMM) in Dammam, Saudi Arabia—is more than double the area size of the world’s next biggest airport, King Khalid International Airport, also located in Saudi Arabia. At an estimated 300 sq miles, King Fahd International is the same size as the entirety of New York City and almost six times larger than the biggest airport in the United States, Denver International Airport.
However, for an airport of such scale, a look at its schedule shows an underwhelming number of commercial flights. For example, data from aviation analytics company Cirium reveals less than 3,400 flights are scheduled at King Fahd International this February, peaking at 3,841 flights in July. In terms of annual passenger movement, the airport handled around 12 million passengers last year, but in preceding years, this figure has consistently been in the single-digit millions.
Compare this to the world’s busiest airport—Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International—which handles over 1,000 flights every day and over 62 million annual passengers, and it’s clear that King Fahd International is definitely underutilized in relation to its size. So why is such a massive, modern airport so severely underused?
King Fahd International recently celebrated its quarter-centenary, having opened for business in late 1999. Up until this point, airlines had been using the nearby Dhahran International Airport, formerly a United States Air Force airbase before its current role as a Royal Saudi Air Force base. The airport was developed with the future in mind, so authorities chose its 300 square-mile site knowing they could easily expand its facilities as demand rose.
Given eastern Saudi Arabia’s dependency on the oil industry, King Fahd International has commonly been used for oil and gas flights. It has also grown in its own right as a commercial airport, rising from around 2 million annual passengers at the turn of the millennia to around 12 million in 2024, a new record owing to a surge of passengers in the second half of the year. Despite this, the airport ranks only as the third-busiest in Saudi Arabia.
The airport’s main terminal building is six storeys tall and spans a total area of 327,000 m2. It also has two other terminal buildings, one a VIP terminal and the other operated by state-owned oil company Aramco. It’s important to note that the airport isn’t the world’s biggest based on terminal size—it is the overall site area that takes the title, measuring the same size as neighboring Bahrain! Interestingly, the airport is connected to Bahrain International and the air route is one of the shortest in the world at jut 47 miles.
One of the reasons why King Fahd International has struggled to fill out its capacity is the fact that Saudi Arabia already has two other major airports that satisfy the country’s air travel needs, namely King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh. The former handled over 49 million passengers last year, while Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airport saw 37 million passengers pass through its doors.
Both Jeddah and Riyadh are more popular cities compared to Dammam, so their airports have managed to grow significantly over the decades. In fact, scheduling data for this year shows that around a third of flights out of King Fahd International are to Jeddah and Riyadh. Below are the airport’s ten busiest destinations (measured in flight frequencies) for February:
King Fahd International is also sorely lacking in terms of a big anchor airline dominating operations. Presently, it is a hub for low-cost carriers Flynas and Flyadeal, but the country’s national carrier, Saudia , dropped it as a hub and now serves just a handful of destinations. With new Saudi carrier Riyadh Air due to be based out of its namesake city, King Fahd International is likely to remain a hub for low-cost airlines for the foreseeable future.
This is even more likely given the huge development going on at Riyadh’s King Salman International Airport. Featuring six runways, the airport has ambitions of becoming the region’s new mega-hub and would become a new base for both Saudia and Riyadh Air. While the total area size of King Salman International won’t come close to the 300 square miles of King Fahd International, its terminal buildings and retail facilities could be the biggest in the world by the time they are built.
Dammam is Saudi Arabia’s fifth-largest city known for its connection to the oil industry. However, unlike Riyadh and Jeddah, it doesn’t have the large population base or economic pull of Saudi Arabia’s star cities, meaning Dammam is not necessarily a destination in high demand for visitors, nor does it have a large population demanding flights across the world.
Despite being a hub for LCC’s Flynas and Flyadeal, the region’s lack of major demand for low-cost flights has meant these airlines operate fairly limited networks out of the airport. As it stands, there are over 20 airlines operating at the airport, although the vast majority serve just a single destination. Along with Flynas and Flyadeal, other airlines with a strong presence include Air India Express – which flies to over 10 Indian cities – and IndiGo.
What does the future hold?
King Fahd International is set to play a key role under Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 plan, which hopes to attract hundreds of millions of visitors to the country each year by 2030. Due to its location in the country, it is being developed with more of an emphasis on cargo and logistics flights, although passenger operations will also be very important.
On the passenger front, high up on the agenda is the need to establish more connectivity with European and Asian destinations. Presently, the vast majority of traffic at King Fahd International is domestic or regional, but authorities are keen to open up more routes to major cities in Europe and Asia. As for its role as a cargo hub, the airport was recently handed over $26 million in funding by SAL Saudi Logistics Services to develop the airport’s air cargo building.
The airport is also set to undergo a terminal modernization revamp to improve its people-flow facilities. Engineering firm Kone will install several elevators, escalators and people movers across the airport in anticipation of a rise in footfall in the coming years.
Given the airport’s growth trajectory, it looks set to beat its passenger record this year having registered a 15% year-on-year increase in 2024. Last year, the airport also recorded its highest-ever daily passenger totals which exceeded 50,000 on some days, as well as achieving its highest daily flight movements at 374. This growth is in line with a general rise in operations across Saudi Arabia’s aviation industry, with its two other major airports in Jeddah and Riyadh also experiencing a similar rise in passengers year-on-year.
Other huge airports around the world
King Fahd International is in a league of its own in terms of total area size. In terms of sheer area size, the world’s ten biggest airports, according to Afar, are as follows:
However, with the vast majority of the area at King Fahd International currently just empty space, plenty of other airports worldwide can rival it in terms of used space. For example, Beijing Daxing International is home to the world’s largest terminal building at 696,773 square meters (7.5 million square feet) – however, Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport has staked its claim as the world’s largest terminal after opening its new East 4 and West 4 corridors.…Read more by Luke Bodell