As rapidly as its protection on the route started, Saudia is ready to droop its operations on the route from 
London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to King Fahd International Airport (DMM) within the Saudi Arabian metropolis of Dammam. The latter facility is understood for consistently ranking among the largest airports in the world by size, however this scale doesn’t seem to have transformed into significant load elements, with the route’s flights sometimes solely half full.
Saudia’s newest iteration of the Dammam-London Heathrow route solely commenced final November, however, when all is alleged and accomplished, it’ll have solely served the hall for somewhat over 5 months, with these flights set to be withdrawn as of mid-April. Let’s study this suspension and the underlying numbers behind it.
Ending Next Month
Earlier this week, Aero Routes reported that Saudia had filed a schedule change that indicated that it would be shelving its route from Dammam to London Heathrow as of April 18, 2026. Having beforehand served this hall till 2010, each on a nonstop foundation and through King Khalid International Airport (RUH) within the Saudi Arabian metropolis of Riyadh, Saudia relaunched its flights between Dammam and London Heathrow Airport in November 2025.
This meant that, alongside Jeddah, Medina, Neom Bay, and Riyadh, Dammam grew to become the fifth Saudi Arabian metropolis to be served from London on the similar time, marking a document excessive. These thrice-weekly flights use widebody twinjet plane within the type of the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, and have operated 3 times every week since November 5. Saudia decreased its frequency on the Jeddah-London route with a purpose to unencumber the wanted capability.
Simple Flying has reached out to Saudia for additional data on the suspension of its Dammam-London Heathrow route. We will replace our protection if and when a press release is obtained.
The Route Suffered From Low Load Factors
Until official affirmation is given by Saudia as to the explanations behind the termination of this route, we are able to solely speculate as to the explanations behind its suspension. However, with that being stated, a fast have a look at knowledge from the CAA means that low load elements might have performed a job within the route’s withdrawal.
Indeed, in response to the CAA, a grand total of just 4,424 passengers used Saudia’s flights between Dammam and London Heathrow Airport (in both route) in November and December of 2025. This represents a median load issue of simply 49.5%, on condition that, throughout the identical interval, 8,940 seats had been obtainable on the route, in response to Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. As such, Saudia will seemingly have been making a loss from these ops.
As beforehand talked about, the service flies the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner on this route. According to current fleet knowledge made obtainable by ch-aviation, the SkyTeam member and Saudi Arabian flag carrier currently has a grand total of 13 of these widebody twinjets at its disposal, with one other 18 on order. They are 9.2 years outdated on common, in comparison with a fleet-wide imply of 14.6 years, and, have 274 financial system and 24 enterprise class seats on board.
Why Are There So Few Flights At The World’s Largest Airport?
Saudi Arabia has overseen a pointy rise in passenger site visitors, so issues may change within the coming years.
Saudia’s London Capacity Will Be Redeployed To Jeddah
The suspension of its Dammam route leaves Saudia with a further three weekly slots at London Heathrow Airport. Given how profitable these are, with the UK’s largest and busiest air hub being closely constrained by its slot-controlled operations, it’s inside the most effective pursuits of Saudia for the Middle Eastern service to maintain maintain of those. As such, it plans to redeploy the capability on one other route from Heathrow, particularly to its Jeddah hub.
As beforehand talked about, the Dammam route makes use of three weekly slots that had been freed up for this goal by decreasing capability between Heathrow and King Abdulaziz International Airport (JED). Now, nevertheless, these slots shall be given again to the Jeddah route, which can see Saudia’s weekly frequency rise as soon as once more from 11 to 14 rotations every week. This works out at two providers a day, underlining the significance of Jeddah in comparison with Dammam.
