Is Kuwait International Airport Open Today? KWI Running With Its Terminal 1 Still Closed for Repairs

Kuwait International Airport is open and operating flights Saturday, continuing months of restricted but functional service that has followed a series of Iranian attacks on the facility earlier this year during the broader 2026 regional conflict involving Iran, the United States and Israel.

The airport, commonly referred to by its code KWI, is currently running operations through two active passenger terminals, Terminal 4 and Terminal 5, while Terminal 1 remains closed for repairs following direct damage sustained during Iranian drone and missile attacks. Kuwait Airways operates out of Terminal 4, while Jazeera Airways uses Terminal 5, alongside a growing number of returning international carriers, according to travel advisory trackers monitoring the airport's operations throughout the year.

The disruptions affecting Kuwait's main airport trace back to Feb. 28, when Iran launched a campaign of aerial attacks against the facility as part of the broader war, targeting Terminal 1 and critical air traffic control infrastructure in what officials described at the time as an effort to disrupt a hub being used for coalition logistics. That campaign forced a total suspension of commercial aviation in Kuwaiti airspace lasting more than 40 days before authorities began a phased reopening in late April.

Operations have been repeatedly interrupted since then by renewed strikes and precautionary shutdowns. A June 3 attack proved especially severe: Kuwait's Ministry of Defense said a number of hostile drones targeted Terminal 1 during what the government described as continued Iranian aggression, an attack that Kuwaiti authorities said caused significant damage to the building and injuries to a number of people. The Associated Press reported at the time that the strike killed one person and wounded dozens more, and that Kuwait briefly shut its main airport in the immediate aftermath before resuming operations.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps publicly denied responsibility for the June 3 strike on the airport, according to reporting from Al Jazeera, while Kuwait's foreign ministry separately rejected Iranian accusations that the country's territory had been used to facilitate attacks against Iran, calling those claims baseless. Kuwait's foreign ministry condemned what it described as brutal and ongoing Iranian attacks using ballistic missiles and drones targeting civilian and vital facilities, including the airport, in a statement issued following the strike.

An earlier attack in April also struck fuel tanks at the airport belonging to the Kuwait Aviation Fuelling Company, sparking a large fire, though Kuwait's state news agency KUNA reported no casualties resulted from that particular strike, according to the country's civil aviation authority.

More recently, renewed missile and drone activity in the region prompted Kuwait to close its airspace and suspend takeoffs and landings on July 18 as a precautionary measure during a fresh wave of air-defense intercepts, according to travel advisory service Wego, with normal operations resuming the following day. Kuwait's Directorate General of Civil Aviation has said it continues monitoring the security situation around the clock in coordination with relevant domestic and international authorities to maintain the highest possible levels of airspace safety.

Despite the repeated disruptions, Kuwait International Airport has generally returned to functional operations between incidents throughout 2026, according to multiple travel-advisory trackers, with the airport's two active terminals handling both domestic carriers and a growing list of returning international airlines, including Emirates, flydubai, Air Arabia and Oman Air. At the height of the conflict, Kuwait's national carriers were at times forced to temporarily reroute flights entirely through Saudi Arabia's King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, requiring passengers to complete lengthy bus transfers to reach their actual flights, though most operations have since returned directly to Kuwait.

Separate from the immediate repair effort at Terminal 1, Kuwait has continued advancing a long-planned expansion of its aviation infrastructure. A new Terminal 2, designed by the architecture firm Foster + Partners around a triangular building layout, remains under construction and is targeted for completion in the final quarter of 2026. The project is expected to add dozens of additional gates, thousands of new parking spaces and an air-side hotel once finished, expanding the airport's overall passenger handling capacity to more than 25 million travelers annually. That expansion has faced its own setbacks over the years, including disruptions tied to the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, minor damage to the construction site itself from an earlier Iranian drone strike, though officials have said the incident did not affect the project's planned completion timeline.

Passengers with flights booked through Kuwait International Airport, particularly those originally scheduled through the still-closed Terminal 1, are advised to confirm rebooking, alternate terminal arrangements or refund options directly with their airline, given that no confirmed date has been announced for restoring passenger operations at that facility. Travel advisory services have continued urging travelers to treat plans through Kuwait with flexibility given how quickly conditions have shifted throughout the year.