I currently live in DMM itself and have travelled a dozen times from this airport, nor have I been satisfied for once. The service provided is so out of order and the immigration and check in counters work as desired by the officials. They often have tea breaks as they desire and do not care to look at the queues that have been waiting. International standards to this airport I believe is granted only due to the unique and huge infrastructure. The amount of cafes and lounges can be counted in your fingers. Officials are careless about passengers' doubts and queries. I recommend travelling through BAH airport as it's got a class of its own.

As I currently live in Saudi, I've had the chance to travel through Dammam (DMM) airport as well as Bahrain (BAH) airport. I'd agree with other posters that you should generally try to use BAH instead of DMM. Contrary to other posts, it is a shorter travel time from DMM to Al Khobar than from BAH, but only my minutes. However, the roads are much worse than those to BAH. The major disadvantage of BAH is crossing the causeway. Usually it isn't a problem but during peak holidays and Thursday and Friday it is very slow due to the Saudis coming back from Bahrain. Wait times at the border have been as much as 4 hours in extreme cases. Flying out of DMM isn't so bad but leaves a lot to be desired. There is only one duty free shop, two coffee shops, and one snack kiosk once you get past security. More importantly, there are no bars in DMM. Security can be somewhat slow due to the lax nature. Flying in to DMM is the problem. They are just not set up to manage large incoming flights and don't care that they are wasting your time. Shutting passport control down for hours at a time and re-shuffling lines is very common place with delays of up to 2 hours being common. When possible, I fly through BAH.

The main problem is the location. This is the reason why it is so uncrowded. It's just too far from anything! Dammam isn't that close by, and driving to Al-khobar is much longer. Many people fly into Bahrain and then drive into Dammam/Al-khobar, which believe it or not, is actually takes less time than driving to KFIA! The roads themselves leading to the airport aren't so great either. They are improving, but still need some work. Now, as for the airport itself...it has improved quite a bit. "Duty free" is still sub-par, but there are now more places to eat, and the quality offered has improved. The waiting areas are much more comfortable now, and there are now smoking lounges, which is good. So overall, the airport itself isn't bad. And as mentioned, since much of the airport is idle, it's never too crowded.

I travelled to Suadi Arabia to do some work for Aramco, I changed planes in Bahrain, and then went on to Dammam, why? I then travelled back most of the way I had come from Bahrain to Dharan, if only I had known I would have stopped in Bahrain, and crossed the causeway into Dharan. What is the point of building this airport, miles from anywhere! Flying back the other way, I again went to DMM, and changed planes in Bahrain. DMM was totally disorganised, there was one queue for immigration, and everyone had yo join it, then a miracle happened they suddenly opened 4 queues just as I to to the front of the queue - I was now in the wrong queue (it was for Saudi people), and I should now join the proper queue - no way was I going to go and stand at the back of the queue after queuing for 30 minutes. I stuck it out but it still took another 10 minutes to get my passport stamped so I could continue, so altogether I spent 40 minutes queuing for immigration to get out of the country. After passing through immigration I thought I could at least buy something in the departure lounge! You are joking aren't you. One shop selling a few dusty articles, one kiosk selling tea and coffee, nothing else, just mile after mile of nothing! There were three flights about the same time, and looking at the departure board there was not much else flying from there! Next time I will stop in Bahrain, and return from Bahrain, at least that has shops, and cafes that sell things!

I've been using DMM airport since it was old for international as well as domestic segments. The new DMM has improved but not comfortable as Riyad but better than Jeddah. In all over Saudi Arabia non-Arabic have problems but interestingly Saudis speak English a bit better than Russian or Latin American but they insist on speaking Arabic. Domestic terminal used by 90% local Saudis so airport staff rarely speak English and if you understand Arabic and speak a bit then you will be very comfortable in any airport or any offices in Saudi Arabia. It's true that passengers assistance is poor but all international airlines check-in counters you can find expat (English speaking) with local staff.