Travellers reach Kenya from 6 African airports on 6 catalogued routes, flown by Kenya Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, RwandAir, EgyptAir. This corridor sits in the intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor. The tables below list every catalogued route, the carriers on it, and — where our cache has data — the lowest USD fare seen; all fares are quoted in USD, with on-the-ground spending in KES.
Routes to Kenya
6 catalogued corridors reach Kenya from 6 African airports, flown by 5 carriers and totalling about 96 weekly departures, with block times from 1.5 h to 5.5 h. 1 of them run fewer than seven times a week, the line where a cancellation starts costing days rather than hours.
| Route | Carriers | Freq/wk | Block (h) | Market low (USD) | Guide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg (JNB) → Nairobi (NBO) | KQ, SA, ET | ~35 | ~4.0 | — | guide |
| Dar es Salaam (DAR) → Nairobi (NBO) | KQ | ~14 | ~1.5 | — | guide |
| Entebbe (EBB) → Nairobi (NBO) | KQ, WB | ~21 | ~1.5 | $335 | guide |
| Kigali (KGL) → Nairobi (NBO) | WB, KQ | ~14 | ~1.5 | — | guide |
| Lagos (LOS) → Nairobi (NBO) | KQ, ET | ~7 | ~5.5 | $712 | guide |
| Cairo (CAI) → Nairobi (NBO) | MS, KQ | ~5 | ~4.5 | — | guide |
1 of these corridors runs fewer than seven times a week, which is the line where disruption stops being an inconvenience. Below daily frequency, a cancellation can mean days rather than hours, and re-accommodation onto another airline requires an interline or codeshare agreement rather than goodwill. If your dates into Kenya are fixed, prefer the higher-frequency gateway even at a higher fare.
Weekly frequency here is our catalogue’s estimate for each corridor as a whole rather than a published timetable for one airline, and it moves with the seasonal schedule change. Block times are scheduled gate-to-gate for the nonstop sector, so a much longer duration on a booking screen means a connection. Both figures come from our route file, last refreshed 2026-05-19.
Airlines flying to Kenya
5 carriers fly the catalogued corridors into Kenya, 5 of them with a row in our carrier file recording checked-baggage baselines of 23 kg, 4 of those rows inside a global alliance. Baselines are economy figures and depend on the fare family you buy.
Carriers operating the catalogued routes to Kenya, with alliance, baggage baseline and any diaspora or pilgrim baggage uplift:
| Airline | Alliance | Checked baggage | Diaspora uplift | Hajj/Umrah charter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kenya Airways (KQ) | SkyTeam | 23 kg | +5 kg | No |
| South African Airways (SA) | Star Alliance | 23 kg | +5 kg | No |
| Ethiopian Airlines (ET) | Star Alliance | 23 kg | +5 kg | Yes |
| RwandAir (WB) | None | 23 kg | — | No |
| EgyptAir (MS) | Star Alliance | 23 kg | +18 kg | Yes |
Diaspora and migrant-worker baggage uplift recorded against these carriers: Ethiopian Airlines +5 kg, Kenya Airways +5 kg, EgyptAir +18 kg and South African Airways +5 kg. Three exclusions normally apply to promotions of this kind: they attach to nominated corridors rather than the whole network, they are rarely honoured on another airline’s codeshare or interline segment, and the deepest-discount fare buckets are usually carved out. Confirm against your own booking class in writing.
Visa & entry — Kenya
1 entry route applies to most African passports for Kenya: eTA (electronic Travel Authorisation) — replaced visa-on-arrival in January 2024. Fee $30 USD; maximum stay Up to 90 days as decided at port of entry. A transit stop can need its own visa even airside.
For most African passports (South African baseline; rules vary by nationality, verify before booking):
| Entry type | Fee | Max stay | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|
| eTA (electronic Travel Authorisation) — replaced visa-on-arrival in January 2024 | $30 USD | Up to 90 days as decided at port of entry | official |
EAC nationals (Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, DRC) enter free. Apply at least 3 days before travel.
One caveat governs this whole section: the reference passport. Our file is compiled against a South African (ZA) passport, and Kenya does not treat every African nationality alike — fees, eligibility and even the application channel differ between ECOWAS, EAC, Maghreb and Southern African passports. Last verified 2026-05-18, next review 2026-08-18.
Worth knowing before booking: EAC nationals (Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, DRC) enter free. Apply at least 3 days before travel.
When to book
Book 4-8 weeks ahead. That window is our guidance for the intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor traffic that dominates travel into Kenya, based on how fares on these corridors behave in our own weekly log. Treat the window as cluster guidance rather than a rule for a single pairing; on thin corridors seat availability binds before price does.
Book 4-8 weeks ahead. Fares rise around the December holidays; mid-week departures are usually the cheapest. See each per-route guide for month-by-month fare seasonality.
Booking windows are about competition for seats, not a hidden cheapest day. On a corridor with several daily rotations there is inventory left to release, and a late booking sometimes still finds a workable bucket; on a thin corridor into Kenya the cheap buckets are gone months out and no amount of searching brings them back. Check the frequency column before deciding how long to wait.
Fixed dates change the calculation entirely. A pilgrimage window, a school holiday, a contract start or a family event puts you in competition with everyone else holding that date, so the right move is to book early rather than to hunt. Flexible dates are the highest-leverage variable on these corridors — our own log regularly shows month-to-month movement larger than any gap between booking gates.
Live fares to Kenya
$335 is the lowest USD quote our cache holds on any corridor into Kenya — on EBB-NBO — out of 2 priced corridors of the 6 catalogued. Each is one cached observation on its own corridor, in economy, not a low across the cache.
Lowest USD fares in our Travelpayouts cache on routes to Kenya (market lows across all carriers; check live prices before booking):
| Corridor | Market low (USD) | Cheapest month seen |
|---|---|---|
| EBB-NBO | $335 | $174 in Aug 2026 |
| LOS-NBO | $712 | $492 in Aug 2026 |
| Corridor | Readings | Cached range (USD) | Cheapest week |
|---|---|---|---|
| DAR-NBO | 6 | $150–$275 | 2026-W25 |
| JNB-NBO | 6 | $273–$439 | 2026-W25 |
| KGL-NBO | 5 | $259–$588 | 2026-W25 |
| LOS-NBO | 3 | $413–$815 | 2026-W23 |
Those rows come from our weekly fare log, which samples the cheapest published quote once a week across 161 corridors. Each reading is a single snapshot rather than an average of everything sold that week, so a one-week dip can be one small fare bucket. What the range does establish is a defensible floor: a live quote far above the top of the range on a Kenya corridor is worth a second search on flexible dates.
Departure airports for Kenya
6 African airports have a catalogued corridor to Kenya on this site: Cairo (CAI), Dar es Salaam (DAR), Entebbe (EBB), Johannesburg (JNB), Kigali (KGL) and Lagos (LOS). Fares from every one of them are quoted in USD so the origins stay comparable.
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Cairo airport (CAI) — Cairo International, Egypt: 12 catalogued departure corridors and 1 arrival corridor.
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Dar es Salaam airport (DAR) — Julius Nyerere International, Tanzania: 11 catalogued departure corridors and 2 arrival corridors.
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Entebbe airport (EBB) — Entebbe International, Uganda: 6 catalogued departure corridors and 2 arrival corridors.
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Johannesburg airport (JNB) — O.R. Tambo International, South Africa: 39 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
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Kigali airport (KGL) — Kigali International, Rwanda: 8 catalogued departure corridors and 3 arrival corridors.
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Lagos airport (LOS) — Murtala Muhammed International, Nigeria: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 2 arrival corridors.
These links come out of the data rather than an editorial wish-list. Two pages are connected when they share an airport, a carrier, a destination country or an audience cluster, which means the list is stable as the catalogue grows and does not drift toward whatever term happens to rank. Skip what does not match your trip.
FAQ
6 questions below answer what travellers ask most often about this page’s subject, drawn from the same route, carrier, airport and fare files as everything above. Where a figure is missing from our data, the answer says so rather than estimating.
Do I need a visa for Kenya? For most African passports: eTA (electronic Travel Authorisation) — replaced visa-on-arrival in January 2024
What currency is used in Kenya? Kenya uses KES. Plan on-the-ground spending in KES and compare airfares in USD.
How many routes go to Kenya from Africa? Our catalogue lists 6 routes to Kenya from 6 African airports — see the table above.
When are flights to Kenya cheapest? Book 4-8 weeks ahead. Fares rise around the December holidays; mid-week departures are usually the cheapest.
Which airlines fly to Kenya? Carriers on routes to Kenya include Kenya Airways, South African Airways, Ethiopian Airlines, RwandAir, EgyptAir. See the per-route airlines in the table above.
How cheap are flights to Kenya? The lowest fare in our cache to Kenya is about $335 on EBB-NBO. Fares move with season — the route guides show month-by-month trends.
Search live fares
6 catalogued corridors into Kenya means a live search will return several routings for the same dates; our lowest cached floor across them is $335. Dates move the price more than any other variable. Fares across all 6 of those corridors are quoted in USD on this site so origins in different African markets stay comparable on one page.
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Three checks make results comparable. Fix passenger count and cabin before comparing, because a per-passenger fare and a total look identical on a results page. Read the elapsed time next to the price — a one-stop routing into Kenya and a nonstop are different products. And check whether the fare includes the checked bag you will actually carry.
A month view beats a date view on Kenya corridors. The seasonal spread our fare log records between departure months is consistently larger than the spread between booking sites on the same day, which means calendar flexibility is worth more than shopping around. Locked dates invert the advice: buy sooner.