AIRPORT CARGO GUIDE — DAMMAM
King Fahd International Airport Cargo Guide
The world’s largest airport by land area and the Kingdom’s most cargo-dedicated one: nine cargo facilities, the first bonded zone at a Saudi airport, a six-square-kilometre Cargo Village, and a tenfold tonnage ambition.
IATA · ICAO
DMM · OEDF
Operator
Dammam Airports Company (DACO)
Opened
28 November 1999
Cargo Village capacity
650,000 t / year
Cargo handled, 2024
≈140,000 t
Cargo facilities on site
9 — most of any Saudi airport
Operator and ownership
- Operator
- Dammam Airports Company (DACO).
- Ultimate owner
- The Saudi state; GACA is the owning and licensing authority, with Matarat Holding above the operating companies.
- Regulator
- General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA).
- Principal cargo handler
- SAL Saudi Logistics Services, one of its four primary hubs.
- Resident specialist operator
- Aramco Aviation (Mukamalah) operates a dedicated terminal for Saudi Aramco traffic on the same site.
Location and coordinates
About 31 km north-west of Dammam and roughly 75 km from Jubail Industrial City, in the Eastern Province on the Arabian Gulf coast — the airport that sits inside the Kingdom’s heavy-industry and oilfield belt, which is what its freight profile reflects.
- Coordinates
- 26.4712° N, 49.7986° E
- Elevation
- 22 m / 72 ft
- Site area
- ≈776 km² — recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest airport in the world by area
- Runways
- Two parallel runways; the western runway extended to 4,000 m
- Time zone
- AST (UTC+3), no daylight saving
Cargo types handled
Terminal and cargo facilities
- Cargo Village
- Inaugurated on 17 August 2015 and the first facility of its kind in the Kingdom — freight, warehousing and customs clearance from a single location. The village site covers approximately 6 million m².
- Bonded zone
- The first bonded zone at any Saudi airport, allowing duty-suspended storage and re-export from inside the airport perimeter.
- Logistics zone
- A 500,000 m² logistics zone: approximately 300,000 m² of warehousing and storage and 200,000 m² of services.
- Cargo facilities
- Nine discrete cargo facilities recorded in the most recent GASTAT air-transport release — the highest count of any Saudi airport.
- Express operators
- Multiple integrators operate express facilities inside the village, alongside general-cargo warehousing.
- Passenger & special terminals
- A single main passenger terminal, plus a dedicated Aramco terminal and a royal terminal on the same site.
Dammam is deliberately the most cargo-oriented of the three main Saudi airports: it is behind Riyadh and Jeddah on passengers by a wide margin, and ahead of both on dedicated cargo infrastructure per tonne handled.
Annual tonnage and capacity
| Metric | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo handled | ≈140,000 t | 2024 |
| Cargo handled | 138,870 t | 2023 |
| Cargo Village capacity | 650,000 t / year | current |
| Cargo Village capacity target | 2,000,000 t / year | by 2030 |
| Passengers | 13.7 million (+7.0%) | 2025 |
| Cargo tonnage, month by month | n/p | not published per airport |
The gap between the 650,000-tonne installed capacity and the ≈140,000 tonnes actually handled is the whole story of this airport: the infrastructure is in place well ahead of the demand, and the strategy is to fill it. That is the reasoning behind the tenfold handling target.
SOURCES · GASTAT Air Transport Statistics · General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) · Dammam Airports Company
Main carriers and handlers
A consortium of Air Arabia, Nesma Group and Kun Investment Holding won the licence for a new Dammam-based low-cost carrier expected to serve 24 domestic and 57 international destinations and to connect close to 10 million passengers a year through the airport by 2030 — which would materially change the belly capacity available out of the Eastern Province.
Road and rail connections
- Road
- Direct access from the Dammam–Jubail expressway; roughly 31 km to Dammam, 75 km to Jubail Industrial City and 60 km to Ras Tanura. Highway 40 runs west to Riyadh.
- Rail — freight
- No siding at the airport. SAR’s East network runs from King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam to Riyadh Dry Port and serves the seaports rather than the airport; air–rail interchange is a truck movement.
- Sea
- King Abdulaziz Port, Dammam is about 40 km away; Jubail Commercial Port about 80 km; Ras Al-Khair about 130 km. This is the densest port cluster in the Kingdom.
- Cross-border
- The King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain is roughly 60 km south — a live road-freight corridor with its own customs regime.
Customs facilities
ZATCA clears at the airport, and Dammam carries a feature the other Saudi airports do not: the Kingdom’s first airport bonded zone, which allows duty-suspended storage and re-export without leaving the airport.
FASAH carries declarations and permits; SAL manages inspection on the handling side.
Oilfield and project cargo frequently arrives under temporary-import and re-export regimes; the bonded zone is designed for exactly that traffic.
Cold-chain capability
SAL provides chilled, controlled-room-temperature and frozen storage at the Cargo Village, with cool dollies for imported pharma as SFDA requires.
Cold-chain volumes here are smaller than at Riyadh or Jeddah; the Eastern Province cold chain is anchored more on the seaports and the Dammam distribution estates than on air freight.
Dangerous-goods capability
Dangerous goods move under the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations, and Dammam has the deepest practical competence in the Kingdom for oilfield DG — radioactive sources for well logging, explosives for perforating, corrosives and compressed gases — because that is the local industry.
Restricted classes require prior GACA and security approval. Project and outsize cargo is routine here rather than exceptional.
Expansion projects
- SAR 1.6 billion+ development programme
- An investment package of about $426.5 million across 77 infrastructure projects, aimed at turning the airport into a regional freight hub.
- Cargo target
- Air cargo handling targeted to rise to more than 600,000 tonnes a year — roughly a tenfold increase — with a Cargo Village capacity ambition of 2 million tonnes a year by 2030.
- Airfield upgrades
- The western runway extended to 4,000 m, 4,000 m of additional taxiway, more than 3,200 advanced lighting units on a unified system, and the first Category III Instrument Landing System in Saudi Arabia — which allows automatic landings in low visibility and directly protects freighter schedule integrity.
- Capacity masterplan
- A strategic masterplan targeting more than 19.3 million passengers a year by 2030, an eventual 32 million, and 77 aircraft movements an hour.
- New Dammam-based carrier
- A low-cost carrier led by Air Arabia, Nesma Group and Kun Investment Holding, expected to begin operations from 2026.
Official contact links
- King Fahd International Airport ↗
- The airport’s own site — Cargo Village, bonded zone and operations.
- General Authority of Civil Aviation ↗
- The regulator; national air-cargo statistics.
- SAL Saudi Logistics Services ↗
- Cargo ground handling, cold chain and DG acceptance.
- ZATCA ↗
- Customs, bonded-zone and re-export rules.
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Frequently asked questions
Is King Fahd International Airport really the largest in the world?
By land area, yes — approximately 776 km², recognised by Guinness World Records. By traffic it is the Kingdom’s third airport, with 13.7 million passengers and about 140,000 tonnes of cargo. Area and throughput are very different measures.
What is the Cargo Village?
A single-location freight estate opened in August 2015, the first of its kind in Saudi Arabia, covering approximately 6 million m² with 650,000 tonnes of annual capacity, a 500,000 m² logistics zone and the first bonded zone at any Saudi airport.
Why is capacity so far ahead of throughput?
Deliberately. The installed 650,000 tonnes a year against roughly 140,000 tonnes handled reflects a build-ahead strategy; the stated target is to raise handling to more than 600,000 tonnes a year and Cargo Village capacity to 2 million tonnes by 2030.
Is Dammam good for project and oilfield cargo?
It is the Kingdom’s natural airport for it — inside the heavy-industry belt, 75 km from Jubail, with an airport bonded zone suited to temporary import and re-export and deep local competence in oilfield dangerous goods.
What does the Category III ILS change for freighters?
It allows aircraft to land automatically in low visibility and fog, which protects schedule integrity on night freighter operations — the first such installation in Saudi Arabia.
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