Kuwait International Airport Is Open Today With Flights at Terminals 4 and 5, Terminal 1 Still Closed

KUWAIT CITY — Kuwait International Airport was open and handling scheduled flights on Monday, with arrivals landing at the field and no mass cancellation showing on public tracking boards, even as Terminal 1 remained closed for repairs tied to attacks earlier this year.

Flight-tracking data for KWI on Sept. 28 showed a low disruption reading, an average delay of about five minutes, delayed flights at about 1 percent and cancellations at zero in the window displayed. A Jazeera Airways flight from Colombo, J9 552, was listed as landed in the morning local time. A Kuwait Airways flight from Islamabad, KU 206, was showing as inbound. The airport's meteorological report for the morning listed visibility of 7,000 meters and no significant weather, not a closure.

The operating pattern is the one travel advisories have described since the summer: passenger service through Terminals 4 and 5, not through Terminal 1. Kuwait Airways has been using Terminal 4. Jazeera Airways has been using Terminal 5. Foreign carriers that have returned have been assigned to those buildings. Terminals 4 and 5 have separate access roads. A ticket that still says Terminal 1 is not a reliable instruction.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation's public summary dated Sept. 20 listed NOTAM A0338/26 with the Kuwait flight information region marked available. Wego's status note, updated Sept. 23, said the airport was open on reduced schedules through Terminals 4 and 5, and that no Oct. 1 restart of transit through Terminal 5 had been approved. Britain's Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has warned that airspace in the region can still close at short notice and that flights can be cancelled without much warning. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency's guidance to European operators to avoid Gulf waters in the Kuwait region was still listed as running to Sept. 30.

That is the practical answer for a traveler asking whether the airport is open today. It is open for arrivals and departures that airlines have kept on the board. It is not back to the terminal map that existed before February.

The damage that closed Terminal 1 began with Iranian strikes on the airport during the wider U.S.-Iran conflict. Kuwait suspended flights and diverted inbound aircraft after attacks that officials said hit the terminal and air-traffic facilities. FlightGlobal reported that a June 3 strike by missiles and drones killed one person and injured more than 60, and that the Defense Ministry described "significant material damage" to Terminal 1 from hostile drones. Technical teams later cleared Terminals 4 and 5 to resume. Terminal 1 did not.

Sheikh Humoud Mubarak Humoud Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, director of the Public Authority of Civil Aviation, said when airspace operations resumed in a phased plan that the decision was taken with international authorities so operations would meet safety and security standards, according to the Kuwait News Agency. Officials said an assessment of damage from the Iranian attack and actions by affiliated armed groups had been completed, and that repair work had started. Early phases were limited to selected destinations, with each stage reviewed before capacity was added.

A June statement carried by Qatar's civil aviation authority quoted Kuwait's directorate as saying air traffic had "returned to normal following the end of the circumstances that has necessitated earlier precautionary measures," and that flights were operating to approved schedules. Later notices showed the recovery was narrower than that sentence. Terminal 1 stayed shut. Schedules stayed thinner than 2025. Overflight rules changed more than once.

OPSGROUP, which tracks airspace risk, has described Kuwait's reopening as limited and has said neither Kuwait nor Iran has restored normal central Middle East routing. That is a routing problem for airlines, not a closed terminal door for a passenger whose flight is still listed. The two facts sit together: the field is accepting aircraft, and the network around it is not what it was.

Monday's board is consistent with that split. Low delay, a landed Jazeera flight, a Kuwait Airways arrival still estimated — those are signs of an operating airport, not a NOTAM shutdown. They are not a promise that the afternoon bank will look the same. Gulf schedules have been rewritten with little notice when airspace closed this year. The useful check is the airline's own status page, not a screenshot from last week.

Passengers should also confirm the building. Kuwait Airways and Jazeera do not share a terminal. A driver sent to the wrong door loses time that a reduced schedule does not have. Lounges, check-in and immigration are running in the open terminals. Wait-time estimates published over the weekend described the field as quiet, which fits a thinner timetable more than a full hub.

Weather was not the constraint. The morning METAR showed light wind, no significant cloud and visibility of 7,000 meters. Heat in late September is ordinary for Kuwait. It does not explain a terminal closure.

What remains unresolved is Terminal 1 and the durability of the airspace. No confirmed reopening date for the damaged building has been published in the status notes used here. Repair crews have been working since the strikes. The public description is still "closed." Until that changes, the airport's answer to "are you open?" is yes, in two terminals, on the flights airlines have chosen to run, with the main international building still out.