Air Cairo Cancels Abha Flights as Houthi Strikes Shatter Saudi Truce

Egypt’s Air Cairo has cancelled every flight to and from Abha, Saudi Arabia, after Houthi missiles and drones forced the closure of the kingdom’s southern international airport. The low-cost carrier is offering rebooking or full refunds while it coordinates with Saudi authorities on when service might resume.

The cancellation is a small piece of a much larger rupture. Monday’s strike was the first Houthi attack on Saudi soil since an informal truce took hold four years ago, and it has already grounded or delayed more than 200 flights across six Saudi airports. Global carriers are now recalculating which stretch of Middle Eastern sky still counts as safe.

Air Cairo Grounds Its Abha Route

Air Cairo advised passengers to monitor updates and contact its call centre in Egypt or their travel agents to arrange rebooking or refunds. Customers outside Egypt were told to reach the airline’s offices or authorised agents in their home countries for the latest procedures.

The carrier said it is coordinating with the relevant authorities and will issue further updates as the situation develops.

It was not alone in pulling out of Abha. Trade outlet EnterpriseAM reported that at least ten departures from the airport were cancelled within hours of the attack, including five Saudia services and two Flyadeal flights. Flydubai cancelled its Abha and Najran routes entirely after diverting an inbound jet to Taif.

Dubai Airports confirmed two Flydubai departures from Terminal 2 to Abha, scheduled for Tuesday, July 14th, were called off, and Air Arabia scrubbed its Sharjah to Abha return service the same day.

Passengers unsure whether their route is still flying can check Air Cairo’s real-time flight status lookup tool before heading to the airport. The wider mechanics of getting money back are covered in a separate rebooking and refund walkthrough for cancelled Air Cairo flights.

• Contact Air Cairo’s call centre in Egypt, or an authorised agent abroad, to request rebooking or a refund.
• Keep the booking reference and any cancellation notice on hand for refund claims.
• Check for alternative Gulf routings on carriers still flying scheduled service, since seats are filling fast.
• Watch for airline app or email alerts, since schedules are shifting hour to hour.

Air Cairo’s own Abha route is modest next to Saudia’s or Flynas’s networks, but the closure still left ticketed passengers stuck mid-itinerary while schedules across the airport remained in flux.

A Diverted Iranian Flight Lit the Fuse

The chain of events began on July 3rd. The Houthis said they confronted Saudi warplanes attempting to block an Iranian civilian aircraft from landing in Sanaa, a flight that Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said was carrying more than 200 stranded, wounded and sick citizens. It was reportedly the first publicly announced Iranian flight into Sanaa in more than a decade.

Tension resurfaced on Monday, July 13th, when Yemen’s internationally recognised government struck the runway at Sanaa International Airport. Officials said the strike was meant to stop a second Iranian aircraft, this one carrying a Houthi delegation home from the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in Tehran.

The aircraft was diverted instead to Hodeidah, a Houthi-controlled Red Sea port city. Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti was aboard, and later told Al Jazeera the group would respond to any attack it attributed to Saudi Arabia.

Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council, headed by Rashad al-Alimi, said it had rejected an Iranian request to fly the delegation directly into Sanaa. It accused the Houthis of trying to receive the flight “outside the legal and sovereign frameworks governing civil aviation.”

Hours later, Houthi forces launched a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones at Abha International Airport and two Saudi air bases.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the strikes were retaliation, warning that “this aggression will not go unanswered or unpunished.” He said Saudi Arabia had ended a period of de-escalation and cautioned airlines against Saudi airspace until the blockade on Sanaa’s airport was lifted.

The strike on Sanaa’s runway followed a broader pattern of contested flights into the Houthi-held capital, detailed in earlier coverage of the government strike aimed at blocking the Iranian plane.

Six Saudi Airports Absorb the Shockwave

By Tuesday, the disruption had rippled well beyond Abha. Saudia, the kingdom’s flag carrier, accounted for roughly 75% of all cancellations, according to flight-tracking data cited by travel trade outlets. Flynas and Qatar Airways carried most of the rest of the delays.

Flight-tracking data compiled from FlightAware and cited by multiple outlets show the scale of the disruption across Saudi Arabia’s airports as of Tuesday, July 14th:

The totals, 208 cancellations and 158 delays in all, cover only flights touching Saudi airports directly. A separate FlightAware snapshot tracked more than a thousand additional delays across Dubai, Doha, Cairo and other regional hubs connecting through the kingdom, though that wider count blends routine congestion with attack-related disruption.

Flynas recorded 16 cancellations and 39 delays of its own, while Qatar Airways absorbed a dozen delays without a single cancellation, according to the same tracking data. Egypt’s own carriers, including Air Cairo and Nile Air, registered smaller but real impacts on their Gulf-facing schedules.

Abha Has Sat in the Crosshairs Before

Abha International Airport, set in the Asir highlands near the Yemeni border, has been a recurring target since Yemen’s civil war escalated in 2014. Missile and drone attacks hit the airport in 2019, 2021 and 2022, part of a campaign that once included a strike on a Saudi Aramco fuel facility in Jeddah, near the site of Saudi Arabia’s Formula One Grand Prix.

An informal truce, brokered by the United Nations (UN) in 2022, mostly held after that. It survived the Israel-Gaza war, when the Houthis fired on Red Sea shipping, and it survived the separate war between Iran and the United States and Israel earlier this year. In May, Saudi-backed Yemeni authorities and the Houthis even completed their largest prisoner exchange yet, releasing seven Saudi nationals.

Monday’s missile salvo on Abha broke that run. It was the first attack the Houthis have claimed against Saudi Arabia since the four-year truce took hold, ending the longest quiet stretch of the conflict in years.

The strike’s political fallout, and how it unwound a truce that had outlasted two other regional wars, is covered in reporting on how Houthi missiles struck Abha and ended the Saudi ceasefire.

Separating Confirmed Damage From Viral Rumor

Confusion followed the strikes almost immediately. A video claiming to show Abha airport engulfed in flames spread across social media on July 14th, with one post alone gathering more than 1.3 million views before fact-checkers traced the footage to a different attack entirely.

What we know

• The Houthis fired missiles and drones at Abha on July 13th. The Saudi-led coalition says its air defences intercepted them, and no casualties have been reported by either side.
• Air Cairo, Saudia, Flynas and Flydubai all cancelled Abha services, and the airport remained effectively shut through a second consecutive day.

What’s unconfirmed

• A viral clip claiming Abha airport was “completely destroyed” actually shows a March 2022 Houthi strike on a Saudi Aramco facility in Jeddah, according to a fact-check published through Pakistan’s iVerify project.
• Neither side has released images of missile debris or interception wreckage at Abha, and Saudi Arabia has not publicly addressed the earlier strike on Sanaa’s runway that triggered the retaliation.

The mislabeled footage matters because it shaped early public perception of how badly Abha was hit, even though flight-tracking data, not battle damage, is what has driven the airline cancellations so far.

The Sky Over the Middle East Keeps Shrinking

Aviation analysts describe a rapidly shrinking map of airspace that carriers still trust. University of Antwerp air transport economist Wouter Dewulf said European airlines were already routing around corridors over Ukraine, Iran, Iraq, Yemen and Russia before Monday’s strikes even landed.

KLM is already looking at alternative routings for flights from India, which shows how challenging the situation has become.

Dewulf told trade publication EnterpriseAM that the remaining detours are longer and pricier, adding fuel costs and flight time to routes that once cut straight across the region.

He called a single, isolated strike containable. But repeated attacks, a Saudi retaliation, or any strike closer to Jeddah or Riyadh’s main corridors, he said, could turn a localised disruption into a far wider airspace shock.

The rhetoric has matched the stakes. Houthi political bureau member Mohammed al-Bukhaiti told Al Jazeera the group was prepared to close the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the narrow chokepoint at the southern mouth of the Red Sea, saying “the Bab al-Mandeb card is a strategic asset that Yemen has the luxury of utilising.”

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree separately said Houthi forces downed a Saudi reconnaissance aircraft over Al Bayda province on Tuesday, a claim Saudi Arabia had not addressed publicly as of Wednesday.

International Crisis Group Yemen analyst Ahmed Nagi said the confrontation was about more than one flight. “The Houthis were testing a new red line,” he said, arguing that success would only encourage the group to push further.

Chatham House research fellow Farea al-Muslimi said Saudi Arabia has so far shown restraint through the wider US-Israeli war with Iran. But he said Riyadh is far less likely to stay passive if its influence over Yemen looks threatened.

At an emergency Security Council session on Monday, UN political affairs chief Khaled Khiari told members, “Yemen and the wider region cannot afford another cycle of escalation.” UN Yemen envoy Hans Grundberg said his office was monitoring the situation and urged all sides to preserve what he called the relative calm Yemen had experienced since 2022.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Abha International Airport Still Closed?

Abha International Airport remained effectively shut through a second consecutive day as of Tuesday, July 14th, with most commercial operations suspended. No public timeline for a full reopening had been announced as of Wednesday, and Saudi authorities have not detailed the extent of any physical damage from the strike.

Can Air Cairo Passengers Get a Refund?

Yes. Airline-initiated cancellations generally qualify for a full refund under Egyptian aviation rules, regardless of the original fare type. Air Cairo has directed customers to its call centre in Egypt, or to authorised agents abroad, to process refunds or rebook onto a later service once schedules stabilise.

Why Did the Houthis Target a Saudi Airport?

The Houthis said the missile and drone attack on Abha was retaliation for the strike on Sanaa’s runway hours earlier. The group has said it will keep targeting Saudi airspace until the blockade on Sanaa airport ends and flights between Sanaa and Tehran can resume without interference.

Is the 2022 Saudi-Houthi Truce Over?

Not officially, but its practical effect has collapsed. Monday’s strikes were the first Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia since the informal truce took hold, and Yemen’s internationally recognised government put its Cabinet into permanent session to coordinate a response, a sign both sides now see the exchange as more than a one-off incident.