King Fahd International Airport

King Fahd International Airport, (IATA: DMM,) is an international airport located in the city of Dammam in the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is one of the world's largest airports in terms of its affiliated lands, covering an area of 776 km. It was established in 1999 and managed by Dammam Airports Company since 2017. It is supervised by the General Authority of Civil Aviation.

There are thirty-seven airline companies that pass through this airport. It is estimated that more than ten million passengers use the airport yearly, traveling to forty-three destinations. Hence, the airport is the third airport in the Kingdom in terms of passenger traffic, namely after King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah and King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh.

King Fahd International Airport is one of the three international airports in the Kingdom bearing the name of a Saudi king. For thirteen years, it remained the only international airport in the Eastern Province until the first international flight ever landed at al-Ahsa Regional Airport in 2014.

Five cities and governorates in the Eastern Province are serviced by King Fahd International Airport. On average, reaching the airport by car from these cities requires twenty-five to sixty minutes. It is approximately 35.6 km away from the city of Dammam, 36.5 km from Al-Qatif Governorate, 57.9 km from Al-Khobar Governorate, 93.4 km from Jubail Governorate, and 4,608 km from Dhahran. Two main roads connect the cities and the airport. The first is a four-lane highway that connects the airport's northern exit with al-Qatif Governorate, and the second is a six-lane highway to King Fahd Road that connects the airport's southern exit with Dammam, and it is currently the main road to reach the airport.

According to the OAG website report on evaluating international airport services, the airport ranked second in the world at the level of medium airports in commitment to take-off and arrival times in 2018.

King Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud inaugurated the first international airport in Dhahran, in the Eastern Province, in 1962. It was designed by the Japanese-American architect Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the World Trade Center in New York and the King Fahd Airport building in Dammam later. Beginning in the early 1960s and operating as one of the three international airports in the Kingdom until 1999, the Dhahran Airport facility was replaced by a new one in Dammam and took on the name King Fahd International Airport. Dhahran Airport was transformed into an air base named King Abdulaziz Base, and it is managed by the Ministry of Defense.

King Fahd International Airport in Dammam. (SPA)

King Fahd Airport, like the majority of airports in the Kingdom, reflects the Arab and Islamic identity while having a modern and contemporary feel. It is higher than the car parking, and from the airport terminals, you can see the circular mosque in the center of the airport yard. The mosque has two floors and can accommodate two thousand worshipers. Nine entrances lead to it. A blue tile strip with verses thirty-five to thirty-eight of Surat al-Nur written around the mosque's dome from the inside.

The control tower at the airport is approximately 85.5 m tall, roughly the height of a thirty-storey building. The airport's six floors contain a variety of passenger-serving amenities, including restaurants, retail shops, and a duty-free market. There are also fifteen gates connected by thirty-one bridges, two runways with a length of four thousand m and a width of sixty m, in addition to parallel runways, two helipads for helicopters, forty-seven plane parking for different sizes and types, and eight royal stations.