By Gianluca Lo Nostro
Oct 9 (Reuters) – Europe’s EASA aviation safety body said on Friday it had expanded the area of Saudi Arabian airspace where it recommended airlines not to operate, after Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis attacked Riyadh airport.
In an update to a conflict zone information bulletin first issued on September 30, the EU regulator said recent attacks demonstrated the Houthis’ ability and intent to strike targets deeper inside Saudi territory, including the capital. EASA added an area in northwestern Saudi Arabia to the advisory.
Saudi Arabia’s civil aviation authority said earlier on Friday that three Saudi nationals were killed and several people were injured in two attacks on King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh on Thursday.
The Houthis have renewed threats against airlines flying to Saudi Arabia and said on Thursday they had struck the capital’s airport with two cruise missiles.
“These recurrent missile and drone attacks, together with the activation of air-defence systems, create an increased risk of misidentification of civil aircraft, as well as risks associated with missile and drone overflights, interception activity and falling debris,” EASA said.
OPSGROUP, a membership-based organisation with almost 10,000 aviation professionals that shares flight risk information, sent a “do not fly” warning for Saudi Arabia to its members on Friday, citing risks of sustained missile attacks and “misjudgment” in defensive responses.
“We now recommend avoiding operations in Saudi Arabia entirely, including the use of Saudi airports as en route alternates,” it said in the memo shared with Reuters.
AIRLINES SUSPEND FLIGHTS
Following Thursday’s attacks, Lufthansa Group and three Indian airlines said they would suspend flights to Riyadh expected in the coming days.
Gulf airlines were also affected with Etihad Airways cancelling six flights between Abu Dhabi and Riyadh’s King Khalid International on Friday and two more planned for Saturday citing “operational disruption at Riyadh airport”.
“Flights to Riyadh and Yanbu have been cancelled up to and including 10 October, while flights to Abha have been cancelled up to and including 11 October,” a flydubai spokesperson said.
King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh is Saudi Arabia’s second-busiest airport after Jeddah. It handled 296,800 flights in 2025, equivalent to about 813 a day, according to Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Statistics.
Global flight tracker Flightradar24 showed 131 flights to and from Riyadh had been cancelled by 1305 GMT on Friday after hundreds of cancellations the previous day.
(Reporting by Joanna Plucinska, Gianluca Lo Nostro and Federico Maccioni; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak, Louise Heavens and Andrew Heavens)
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