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With the military activities relating to the 2026 Iran Crisis continuing to cause disruption in the Middle East on both an operational and a human level, Kuwait Airport (KWI) has become the latest high-profile aviation casualty of the ongoing conflict. The facility was among the buildings attacked by Iranian drones earlier today in retaliation to overnight US strikes, killing one person on the ground.
Despite the damage suffered by Kuwait International Airport at the hands of the Iranian drones, it managed to get itself back up and running relatively quickly in the grand scheme of things. With that being said, the facility is still one of the most heavily disrupted airports in the world today in terms of delays and cancellations, with flag carrier Kuwait Airways having waived rebooking fees for today’s flights.
Drone Attack Hits Kuwait International Airport
According to reporting on the matter by the BBC, the latest round of hostilities was provoked by overnight strikes by the US on Iran, which prompted the latter country to launch retaliatory attacks. These included missile and drone strikes on buildings (including the airport) in Kuwait, which is a major US ally in the region, resulting in injuries to more than 60 people on the ground, as well as the single death.
Condé Nast Traveller notes that Kuwait closed its airspace in response to the attacks, which resulted in severe damage to Terminal One at Kuwait International Airport. Correspondingly, flights to Kuwait began to divert to alternative locations in the region, such as Dammam in Saudi Arabia. WION reports that the person killed was an Indian national, with India’s Ministry of External Affairs going on to say that:
“Since the onset of the conflict in West Asia, we have strongly urged that the civilian population and civilian infrastructure must not be targeted. We again call upon parties to cease such attacks.”
Kuwait Airways Has Waived Rebooking Fees For Today’s Flights
As reported at the time by Bernama, Kuwait Airways announced a temporary suspension of its operations shortly after the airspace closure came into effect. As we shall explore in further detail shortly, the flag carrier accounts for almost half of the daily departures at Kuwait International Airport, so its sudden cessation will likely have had a considerable knock-on impact for travelers in the Middle East.
Although Kuwaiti airspace has since reopened, with Terminal Four at Kuwait International Airport planning to restart its operations, Kuwait Airways has still seen a considerable impact on its daily schedule. Indeed, according to FlightAware, around 13% of its flights today are said to have been delayed, with the number liable to continue to rise. As such, the carrier has implemented a flexible rebooking policy.
In a statement published on social media earlier today, Kuwait Airways confirmed that “passengers wishing to cancel their tickets or change their booking for today’s flights only will be exempt from all cancellation and rebooking fees.” At the time of writing, Simple Flying’s flight tracker showed that several Kuwait Airways flights were still in the air, albeit primarily on long-haul flights that were already flying.
No Fly Zones: The Global Tensions Adding Hours To Your Flight
A major up swing in state-on-state violence coupled with the proliferation of air defense systems is reshaping connection corridors and adding hours.
Crunching The Numbers
According to present scheduling data made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, a grand total of 92 flights were scheduled to depart from Kuwait International Airport today. Of these, the aforementioned flag carrier Kuwait Airways accounted for 42 of these (46%), with Jazeera Airways making up another 34 (37%). The latter carrier is a budget airline that will soon begin flying to London.
The other 16 scheduled departures are all one-off operations by a variety of airlines, including the likes of Air Arabia, Air India Express, EgyptAir, Emirates, Etihad Airways, flydubai, Gulf Air, IndiGo, Middle East Airlines, Qatar Airways, and Royal Jordanian. At the time of writing, eight departures and ten arrivals in Kuwait had been cancelled, with another 15 departures and eight arrivals being delayed.
