King Khalid International Airport carried 40.8 million passengers in 2025 — up 8.7% — and set an all-time daily record of 142,538. Rising beside it: King Salman International, a 57 km² airfield designed for 120 million.
Saudi airports handled a record 140.9 million passengers in 2025, up 9.6%, and Riyadh’s King Khalid International took 40.8 million of them — the Kingdom’s #2 airport, processing 29% of national traffic at an average of 112,000 passengers a day.
July set twin records: 142,538 passengers in a single day and 3.9 million across 26,000 flights in the month. The Dubai–Riyadh corridor is the world’s seventh-busiest international route at 4.5 million seats.
Adjacent to RUH, the King Salman International Airport project covers 57 square kilometres and is designed to be among the world’s largest airports: 120 million annual passengers, six runways, terminals and private-aviation facilities opening in phases between 2026 and 2030.
The new hub is the home base of Riyadh Air, the PIF-backed national carrier licensed in 2025, which anchors the Kingdom’s target of 330 million air passengers and 250 destinations by 2030.
Riyadh’s passenger growth is policy-made: the regional-HQ mandate, the events calendar and the e-visa regime all feed the same funnel. The existing airport’s 35–40 million design capacity is already being pressed at peak, which is why the successor is being built before the ceiling is hit.
Jeddah leads the Kingdom’s airports because pilgrims cannot be redirected; Riyadh is growing because passengers can. A capital that adds a 120-million-passenger airport next to a functioning 40-million one is not expanding infrastructure — it is announcing a destination.
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