Last Saturday, the Houthis attacked King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, leaving at least 13 dead and more than 300 wounded. That airport is not a military target — King Khalid Military City Airport is more than 200 miles away.
The U.S.-Israel war against Iran has forced many civilian international airports in the Middle East to temporarily halt operations at various times. At Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest airport for international flights last year, an Iranian drone struck the runway on March 7, stopping flights, and about a week later, flights were halted again after a drone attack set a nearby fuel tank on fire. Iranian drones hit Kuwait International Airport on June 3, resulting in one death, dozens of wounded and the closing of the airfield.
Flying into Moscow is a lot harder now than it was before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The city’s four major airports have experienced dozens of temporary closures and flight restrictions because of Ukrainian drone attacks, and new data indicates that flight cancellations across Russia doubled in the first nine months of 2026. (There is no evidence of Ukraine directly targeting civilians at airports, although one Ukrainian attack hit an administrative building at the Sochi Airport overnight on the weekend. Ukrainian leaders reportedly contemplated airport attacks earlier this year as a potential option. According to the Atlantic’s Simon Shuster, President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected the plan.) The Ukrainians consider Russia’s energy infrastructure a legitimate military target and destroy Russian refineries, terminals and other facilities with metronomic regularity.
Of course, no civilian flights have flown into or out of Ukraine since the war began in February 2022.
In this new threat environment, airports in Europe are enacting temporary halts when drones are sighted or reported. On Sept. 9-10, 2025, a swarm of Russian drones flew into Poland’s airspace, forcing NATO aircraft to scramble to intercept them and shoot some down. Flights were halted at four Polish airports.
This past May saw an uptick in drones invading European skies. On May 15, Helsinki’s international airport suspended air traffic for three hours following reports of a drone threat. Five days later, flights at Vilnius International Airport were suspended and residents of the Lithuanian capital briefly fled to underground shelters after authorities sent a drone alert. Seven times since the beginning of the year, Berlin Brandenburg Airport in Germany has briefly discontinued operations. On Sept. 18, Luxembourg Airport suspended flights following drone sightings.
If you’re looking to terrorize people, a drone attack on a major international airport is an effective tool. There’s a decent chance the strike will be caught on camera, and even if it isn’t, a column of smoke will be visible for miles around. It will be impossible for the target country’s government to cover up the attack or any casualties. Many people in the target country who use that airport will look at the slain or injured and think, “That could have been me.” And as we’ve seen in Europe, even the sighting of a drone or one entering a country’s airspace can impose a cost on civilian air travel.
Of course, blowing up an airport terminal doesn’t weaken a target country militarily. But the Houthis and Iranians are less interested in that objective. They are convinced that enough civilian casualties will force opposing governments to say “uncle” and agree to their terms.
There was a reasonable belief a few years ago that the emergence of drone warfare would make conflicts between nation-states less deadly. Erik Lin-Greenberg, a former fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, wrote in Foreign Policy in June 2019, “Although drones and manned platforms are equivalent under international law, governments seem to view these systems differently. Indeed, the relatively restrained reaction to drone losses thus far suggests that there is an emerging norm in which the downing of a remotely operated asset should not trigger an aggressive military response.”
Unfortunately, drones are also much cheaper and easier to make than conventional long-range missiles. (Iran’s Shahed drones reportedly cost $35,000 each to produce, but one analysis suggests that by producing them on a large scale, Iran spends as little as $4,000 to make one.) International airports are big stationary targets, with lots of fuel stored nearby, and any attack on one becomes international news.
So far, Ukraine is not attacking Russia’s major airports because it fears, with reason, that hitting a civilian airliner or terminal would be seen as piracy. But the Houthis and Iranian regime have no such moral qualms.
Attacking an international airport with a drone is now cheap, easy and effective. The strike on King Khalid International Airport is all but certain to have sequels. And you have to wonder: How long before some enemy of the United States tries this at an American airport?
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