How we count · RUH Watch

These are the rules behind the figures on this website and in the summaries of our X account; both use the same rules.

Each flight once

Every flight is counted once, on the day and hour of its scheduled time in Riyadh time, whatever happens to it later: a flight scheduled at 23:50 counts on that day even if it leaves after midnight.
A flight sold under several airlines' numbers (a codeshare) counts once, under the airline that operates it.
Some flight numbers stay in the schedules without ever operating; we leave them out unless they are marked cancelled.

Every scheduled flight ends with exactly one of these outcomes:

Departed Left its gate at King Khalid Airport.
Arrived Reached its gate at King Khalid Airport.
Cancelled Cancelled by the airline, or two hours past its time without operating and all our sources confirm it.
Diverted An arriving flight that landed at another airport.
Awaiting update No final outcome yet; on the current day this includes flights not yet due.

So: Scheduled = Departed + Arrived + Cancelled + Diverted + Awaiting update.

A flight is delayed when it left or reached its gate more than 15 minutes after its scheduled time, the standard used in aviation.
Only flights that departed or arrived count as delayed. A flight expected to leave late shows as Delayed on the departure and arrival boards, but enters the figures only once it operates.
The X account posts an alert once a delay reaches one hour.

On-time rate: the share of operated flights (departed and arrived) in the period that left or reached the gate within 15 minutes of their scheduled time.
Cancellation rate: cancelled flights out of the flights already due in the period or cancelled in advance; flights still to come are not included.
In the airline ranking, the on-time rate is shown only for airlines with at least 10 operated flights in the period.

The airport was closed from 10 Oct 2026, 14:00, to the end of 17 Oct 2026. Most airlines did not mark their flights cancelled during the closure, so every flight that did not operate during it counts as cancelled.
The daily chart on the Airport statistics page shades the closure days.

Trends: figures for each hour (the last 48 hours), or for each day, week (Sunday to Saturday), month or year.
The days from 26 Sep 2026 to 9 Oct 2026 come before RUH Watch began: only flights that operated are known (departures by takeoff time, arrivals by landing time, and diversions), so scheduled, delayed and cancelled are not shown for them.
Busiest hours (by schedule): the average number of flights scheduled in each hour of the day over the selected period.
Top airlines and destinations: ranked by the number of flights scheduled in the period, whatever their outcome.

The website updates every 5 minutes; the X summaries use the same rules.
A summary shows the figures at the moment it is posted, while the website always shows the latest, so the figures of a past period can still change as the checks of its flights complete (for example, a flight awaiting update confirmed as cancelled).
If a figure looks wrong, tell us through the contact form.