How to Get to Socotra in 2026–27: The Jeddah Flight, and Every Other Route

Quick answer (status as of September 2026): The only direct international flight to Socotra that we can document for the 2026–27 season is Yemenia from Jeddah, resuming on 29 September 2026. Yemenia announced three round trips a week; the schedule filed two weeks later shows two, on Tuesdays and Thursdays; and at least one travel writer is telling readers one. Yemenia publishes no timetable of its own, and the ticket is not sold online: it comes through a licensed Socotra operator, who also arranges your permit.

Much of what is written about getting to Socotra is out of date, for a simple reason. The route changed in January 2026, and many pages were never updated. If a page tells you to fly from Abu Dhabi, check when it was written.

This page is the route as it stands, with a date on it. Where the sources disagree, and on this route they disagree about a great deal, the disagreement is shown rather than smoothed over.

The flight that actually runs

The service is operated by Yemenia, Yemen's national airline, between Jeddah (JED) in Saudi Arabia and Socotra (SCT).

• Outbound: IY525, Jeddah 11:00 to Socotra 14:00, on an Airbus A320. Four independent sources agree on this leg, and one adds that the aircraft has a business cabin.
• Return: IY526, Socotra to Riyan, the airport for Mukalla on the mainland coast, and on to Jeddah. It leaves Socotra in the middle of the afternoon and reaches Jeddah around 19:00. The filed schedule and two travel sources differ by up to 15 minutes, so take the exact times from your ticket.
• Restart: 29 September 2026, at the start of the season.

The outbound flight is non-stop. The return calls at Riyan before continuing to Jeddah, and one Socotra operator describes that call as a 45-minute fuel stop.

Yemenia's other listed routes from Socotra are domestic: Aden, Al Ghaydah and Mukalla. For visitors coming from outside Yemen, Jeddah is the gateway.

How often it flies: the answers do not agree

This is the question every buyer asks, and it does not have a single answer yet.

Source	Date	What it says
Yemenia's deputy commercial director, via Arab News	6 January 2026	regular weekly flights
Yemenia's spokesperson, via Yemen Monitor	26 February 2026	more weekly flights under study, schedule to follow
Yemenia statement to Saba, the state news agency	15 July 2026	three round trips a week from 29 September
Schedule filing, reported by AeroRoutes	30 July 2026	two a week, Tuesday and Thursday
A Czech Socotra travel site	undated	one a week on Tuesday, some dates also Thursday
A travel writer's page	updated 8 September 2026	one a week, on Tuesday

The filing came fifteen days after the announcement, and two other sources independently show the same two-a-week pattern. So the most defensible reading is that Yemenia announced three and filed two. Plan on two, and have your operator confirm in writing which days operate on your dates.

What matters more than any of those numbers: Yemenia has not published a timetable of its own. When we checked on 10 September 2026, the news page on its website had nothing newer than February 2024, and its flights page showed no flights and gave a phone number. Every schedule you read for this route, this one included, is second-hand.

Why the route moved to Jeddah

Until the end of 2025, the tourist gateway was Abu Dhabi, on Air Arabia. That ended abruptly. A state of emergency was declared on Socotra on 30 December 2025, temporarily closing its ports of entry, and hundreds of tourists were left on the island. Yemenia started a Jeddah to Socotra service on 7 January 2026, and Yemen's government later said 609 foreign tourists had been moved to Jeddah on four Yemenia flights. Air Arabia's Abu Dhabi service was suspended that January, and Jeddah has been the gateway since.

That month is also why the way your trip is arranged matters as much as the flight. The stranding risk is covered in is Socotra safe, and how deposits and operator terms work in how booking Socotra works.

Is there still a flight from Abu Dhabi?

No scheduled flight from Abu Dhabi is documented for the 2026–27 season, and two current travel sources say the route stopped in January 2026. Pages quoting Abu Dhabi fares are describing the old route. If anyone offers you an Abu Dhabi flight, ask to see the confirmed booking before you pay.

Other routes

• Cairo, via Aden. Some operators sell Cairo to Socotra with a stopover in Aden. One travel source describes two weekly schedules with a 12-hour stop, and another quotes round trips from about USD 1,100. No source gives a flight number, operating days or times, and none says whether the Aden stop is airside. That matters, because a Socotra permit does not get you into mainland Yemen: entering Aden needs a Yemen visa, and Yemen's embassy in The Hague says entry visa requests are currently on hold for ordinary visitors. The detail is in Socotra permit and entry.
• Mukalla to Socotra. One travel source reports a Sunday flight at around USD 250 one way. It is only useful if you are already on the Yemeni mainland.

Booking the seat

You will not find this flight on a booking site. Two travel sources say the ticket cannot be booked online, one adding that it needs a licensed Socotra company, and Yemenia's own flights page offers nothing to book. In practice your operator buys the seat and arranges the permit that gets you off the plane. That is why package prices include the flight, and why the same seat can be quoted differently by different operators.

What the flight costs

Round-trip fares quoted by travel sources and operators run from about USD 950 to USD 1,200, a spread of roughly a quarter on a single route, and one source quotes USD 1,280 return in business class. Every one of those figures is in US dollars. We have not found a fare quoted in Saudi riyals anywhere, and Yemenia publishes no fares at all. The whole trip is costed in what Socotra actually costs.

Yemenia's FAQ sets out its penalties: USD 20 to change a booking to another flight, USD 100 if you do not cancel at least 72 hours before departure, and USD 100 for a no-show. The FAQ does not say whether these apply to the Socotra route. It adds two rules worth knowing before anything goes wrong: a booking cannot be cancelled by phone, only through a Yemenia sales office, and a ticket cannot be transferred to another person. A USD 300 change or cancellation fee that some operators attribute to airline policy does not appear anywhere in Yemenia's published terms.

Baggage

Yemenia's FAQ allows one cabin bag of up to 7 kg, measuring 55 × 38 × 20 cm. It publishes no free checked-baggage allowance at all. Camera and camping gear add up quickly, so get the checked allowance on your ticket in writing before you pack.

The Jeddah connection

Socotra flights leave from the North Terminal of King Abdulaziz International Airport, while most long-haul flights use Terminal 1. That leaves two questions we could not get answered from any airport or airline source:

1. Is the transfer airside or landside? The four sources we found split two against two. If it is landside, you are entering Saudi Arabia and need a visa to make the connection.
2. How long should you allow? Aggregator sites give 90 minutes and 150 minutes for a change between the terminals. We could not find a minimum connection time published by the airport.

Until those are settled, plan as though you will enter Saudi Arabia:

• The Saudi eVisa is open to citizens of 66 countries, including the UK, the US, Canada and Australia. It is valid for a year, for multiple entries and stays of up to 90 days.
• Egyptian citizens are not on that list. Two travel sources say an Egyptian passport holder becomes eligible with a valid, used US, UK or Schengen visa, or at least three months' residency in a Gulf state; otherwise it means a visa arranged in advance through an embassy.
• Citizens of the Gulf Cooperation Council can enter Saudi Arabia with a national ID card, which removes the question.
• If your flight into Jeddah lands on the morning of the Socotra departure, consider arriving the day before: there is one Socotra flight on an operating day, and no later one to catch.

What to confirm with your operator

Rather than trusting any schedule you have read, this one included, ask for these in writing before you pay:

• Which days IY525 and IY526 operate in your travel window, and whether Yemenia has confirmed them.
• Whether your seat is confirmed or only requested, and what you have paid for it.
• The checked-baggage allowance on your ticket.
• What happens to your ground arrangements, and to your money, if the flight is cancelled.

For the permit that has to be in place before you board, see Socotra permit and entry. If you would rather not assemble any of this yourself, our expeditions include the flight and the permit in one price.