AIRPORT CARGO GUIDE — RIYADH
King Khalid International Airport Cargo Guide
The capital’s air-freight gateway: who runs it, what moves through the Cargo Village, the cold-chain and dangerous-goods regime, road and rail access, and the King Salman International Airport build-out that will replace it.
IATA · ICAO
RUH · OERK
Operator
Riyadh Airports Company
Opened
1983
Cargo village capacity
≈600,000 t / year
Cargo handled, 2024
≈573,000 t
Passengers, 2025
40.8 million
Operator and ownership
- Operator
- Riyadh Airports Company (RAC), the airport’s operating concessionaire.
- Ultimate owner
- The Saudi state, through Matarat Holding — the government airport holding company created when GACA separated its regulatory role from airport operations.
- Regulator
- General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA), which licenses the airport, its handlers and its cargo agents.
- Principal cargo handler
- SAL Saudi Logistics Services — listed on Tadawul, spun out of Saudi Airlines Cargo’s ground-handling division in 2019, and the ground handler at all four of the Kingdom’s main air-cargo hubs.
- Future operator
- King Salman International Airport Development Company (KSIADC), a Public Investment Fund company, is building the replacement airport on and around the same site.
Location and coordinates
Approximately 35 km north of central Riyadh, on the Al-Qassim road, in Riyadh Province — an inland gateway roughly 400 km from the nearest seaport, which is why the capital’s sea freight arrives by rail and road at Riyadh Dry Port rather than at the airport.
- Coordinates
- 24.9576° N, 46.6988° E
- Elevation
- 635 m / 2,082 ft
- Site area
- ≈225 km² — among the largest airport footprints in the world
- Runways
- Two parallel runways, 4,205 m each
- Time zone
- AST (UTC+3), no daylight saving
Cargo types handled
Terminal and cargo facilities
- Cargo Village
- The airport’s freight estate: import and export warehouses, airline and forwarder offices, express operator facilities, customs inspection halls and landside truck docks.
- Pharma & perishables facility
- Purpose-built temperature-controlled handling opened by SAL inside the Cargo Village, covering chilled, controlled-room-temperature and frozen ranges.
- Cargo facilities
- Eight discrete cargo facilities recorded at the airport in the most recent GASTAT air-transport release — second only to Dammam.
- Passenger terminals
- Five terminals under one structure. Terminals 1 and 2 international, 3 and 4 domestic, 5 the Royal terminal. Belly-hold capacity on scheduled passenger services is a material share of the airport’s freight.
Cargo aircraft parking, ULD build-up and break-down and airside transfer all sit within the Cargo Village estate; there is no separate freighter-only apron complex of the kind Dammam operates.
Annual tonnage and capacity
| Metric | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Cargo handled | ≈573,000 t | 2024 |
| Cargo village design capacity | ≈600,000 t / year | current |
| Cargo facilities on site | 8 | 2024 |
| Passengers | 40.8 million (+8.7%) | 2025 |
| Cargo tonnage, month by month | n/p | not published per airport |
Saudi airports together handled 1.18 million tonnes of air cargo in 2025 — 695,600 t inbound, 420,100 t transit and 69,700 t outbound — with Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam taking the largest share. GACA publishes the national total by month; it does not publish a monthly tonnage series per airport, so this desk prints none.
SOURCES · General Authority of Civil Aviation (GACA) · General Authority for Statistics (GASTAT), Air Transport Statistics · Riyadh Airports Company operational reporting
Main carriers and handlers
Saudia Cargo is the anchor freight carrier; the great majority of tonnage moves in the belly holds of scheduled passenger services, which is why the carrier list tracks the passenger network. Riyadh Air — a separate company from this website, and the operator of the competing “Riyadh Cargo” brand launched in January 2026 — sells belly capacity out of this airport. Freighter line-ups change season to season; check the operator or handler for current schedules.
Road and rail connections
- Road
- Highway 65 (Riyadh–Qassim) runs past the airport; the Northern Ring Road and King Fahd Road connect it to the Riyadh industrial districts and the eastbound Highway 40 to Dammam.
- Rail — freight
- No freight rail siding at the airport. The capital’s rail freight node is Riyadh Dry Port, roughly 40 km south, on SAR’s East network to Dammam and Jubail.
- Rail — passenger
- Riyadh Metro Line 4 serves the passenger terminals; it carries no freight.
- Sea
- King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam is roughly 400 km east by road or rail; Jeddah Islamic Port is roughly 950 km west. Air–sea combinations through Riyadh therefore run on the truck and the train, not on a quay.
Customs facilities
Clearance is handled by the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority (ZATCA) at the airport, with inspection halls inside the Cargo Village and a customs presence on the express operators’ facilities.
FASAH, the national single-window platform, carries the declaration, the manifest and the permits for air consignments; SAL manages customs inspection on the handler side.
Bonded storage is available for goods held before clearance or moving in transit. Regulated commodities — pharmaceuticals, food, cosmetics and medical devices — additionally require Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) release.
Cold-chain capability
SAL operates the temperature-controlled estate at the Cargo Village across the three IATA ranges: cold storage at +2°C to +8°C, controlled room temperature at +15°C to +25°C, and frozen below −10°C to −20°C.
Cool dollies are mandatory for imported pharmaceutical shipments under SFDA rules, so temperature control extends onto the ramp rather than stopping at the warehouse door. Handling is aligned to IATA and WHO good distribution practice.
Riyadh is the Kingdom’s fastest-growing cold-chain market, which is a regulatory fact as much as a logistics one: SFDA, customs and the major healthcare buyers are all in the capital.
Dangerous-goods capability
Dangerous goods are accepted under the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations. SAL is an IATA CBTA-accredited dangerous-goods training organisation, so acceptance staff are competency-assessed rather than certificate-holding only.
Explosives, radioactive material and other restricted classes require prior approval and are subject to GACA and security-service conditions; classes that cannot move by air out of Riyadh generally route by road to Dammam or Jeddah.
Expansion projects
- King Salman International Airport (KSIA)
- The Public Investment Fund is building a 57 km² airport on and around the existing site — six parallel runways, nine terminals, a Foster + Partners masterplan, construction under way since September 2025. The cargo target is 2 million tonnes a year by 2030, scaling to 3.5 million tonnes by 2050.
- Terminal 6 — cargo
- A terminal dedicated to cargo operations for low-cost carriers, which is the terminal-side architecture the multi-million-tonne target actually requires.
- Logistics special economic zone
- KSIADC has signed agreements with the Special Integrated Logistics Zone (SILZ), with FedEx, and with private-equity firm ewpartners on an e-commerce and logistics special economic zone at the airport.
- Terminal reallocation
- Riyadh Airports Company completed the largest terminal transition in the airport’s history in February 2026, lifting projected capacity from 42 million passengers in 2025 towards 56 million by the end of 2026.
Official contact links
- Riyadh Airports Company ↗
- The airport operator — operations, tenders and media releases.
- General Authority of Civil Aviation ↗
- The regulator; publishes national air-cargo statistics and airport licensing rules.
- SAL Saudi Logistics Services ↗
- The cargo ground handler — acceptance conditions, pharma and DG requirements.
- Saudia Cargo ↗
- The anchor freight carrier at Riyadh.
- ZATCA ↗
- Customs, tariff and clearance rules.
RiyadhCargo.com is an independent news monitoring service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for any organisation named on this page. Links are provided for reference only.
Latest related news
Nothing on the wire mentioning King Khalid International Airport at the moment. The desk below carries the wider beat, and the feeds refresh every 10 minutes.
Frequently asked questions
How much cargo does King Khalid International Airport handle?
Roughly 573,000 tonnes were handled in 2024, against a Cargo Village designed for about 600,000 tonnes a year. Saudi airports together moved 1.18 million tonnes in 2025. GACA publishes the national figure monthly but not a monthly per-airport series, so no month-by-month Riyadh number is printed here.
Who handles air cargo at Riyadh?
SAL Saudi Logistics Services is the principal cargo ground handler, covering terminal handling, ramp handling, customs inspection management, cold chain and dangerous goods. Express integrators operate their own facilities inside the Cargo Village.
Can pharmaceuticals move through Riyadh?
Yes. SAL operates chilled (+2 to +8°C), controlled-room-temperature (+15 to +25°C) and frozen storage at the Cargo Village, and SFDA rules require cool dollies for imported pharma so the cold chain is maintained on the ramp as well as in the warehouse.
Is King Khalid International Airport being replaced?
It is being absorbed. King Salman International Airport is being built on and around the same site by a PIF company, targeting 2 million tonnes of cargo a year by 2030 and 3.5 million by 2050, with a dedicated cargo terminal for low-cost carriers.
Is there a rail connection for freight?
Not at the airport. Riyadh’s rail freight terminal is Riyadh Dry Port, about 40 km south, connected to Dammam, Jubail and Ras Al-Khair on SAR’s East network.
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Also on this desk: Saudi cargo data — Mawani and GACA series month by month, with CSV downloads · GCC freight statistics — annual sea and air volumes for all six Gulf states.