Travellers reach Madagascar from 3 African airports on 3 catalogued routes, flown by Airlink, Ethiopian Airlines, Air Mauritius, Kenya Airways. 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 the local currency.
Routes to Madagascar
3 catalogued corridors reach Madagascar from 3 African airports, flown by 4 carriers and totalling about 9 weekly departures, with block times from 2.5 h to 4.5 h. 3 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) → Antananarivo (TNR) | 4Z, ET | ~3 | ~4.5 | $691 | guide |
| Port Louis (MRU) → Antananarivo (TNR) | MK | ~3 | ~2.5 | $555 | guide |
| Nairobi (NBO) → Antananarivo (TNR) | KQ, ET | ~3 | ~4.0 | $528 | guide |
3 of these corridors run 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 Madagascar 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 Madagascar
4 carriers fly the catalogued corridors into Madagascar, 4 of them with a row in our carrier file recording checked-baggage baselines of 23 kg, 2 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 Madagascar, with alliance, baggage baseline and any diaspora or pilgrim baggage uplift:
| Airline | Alliance | Checked baggage | Diaspora uplift | Hajj/Umrah charter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airlink (4Z) | - | 23 kg | +7 kg | No |
| Ethiopian Airlines (ET) | Star Alliance | 23 kg | +5 kg | Yes |
| Air Mauritius (MK) | - | 23 kg | +15 kg | No |
| Kenya Airways (KQ) | SkyTeam | 23 kg | +5 kg | No |
Diaspora and migrant-worker baggage uplift recorded against these carriers: Airlink +7 kg, Ethiopian Airlines +5 kg, Kenya Airways +5 kg and Air Mauritius +15 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 — Madagascar
0 verified entry rows exist in our visa file for Madagascar, so this page will not publish a requirement it cannot source. Most African nationals need either a visa, an eVisa or an electronic travel authorisation; the destination’s own immigration portal is the only authority worth acting on.
Visa requirements for Madagascar vary by passport — most African nationals need a visa or eVisa, and some destinations offer visa-on-arrival. Check the destination’s embassy or official immigration portal before booking. On-the-ground currency: the local currency.
One caveat governs this whole section: the reference passport. Our file is compiled against a South African (ZA) passport, and Madagascar 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.
The trap on a Madagascar itinerary is usually the transit rather than the destination. A connection can place you airside in a third country that requires a transit visa for your nationality even when you never leave the terminal, and the airline checks documentation for the entire itinerary at the origin gate. Check every country your ticket touches, against your own passport.
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 Madagascar, 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 Madagascar 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 Madagascar
$528 is the lowest USD quote our cache holds on any corridor into Madagascar — on NBO-TNR — out of 3 priced corridors of the 3 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 Madagascar (market lows across all carriers; check live prices before booking):
| Corridor | Market low (USD) | Cheapest month seen |
|---|---|---|
| NBO-TNR | $528 | $500 in Sep 2026 |
| MRU-TNR | $555 | $253 in Nov 2026 |
| JNB-TNR | $691 | $277 in Oct 2026 |
| Corridor | Readings | Cached range (USD) | Cheapest week |
|---|---|---|---|
| JNB-TNR | 3 | $434–$764 | 2026-W25 |
| NBO-TNR | 3 | $571–$1,039 | 2026-W24 |
| MRU-TNR | 3 | $552–$563 | 2026-W25 |
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 Madagascar corridor is worth a second search on flexible dates.
Departure airports for Madagascar
3 African airports have a catalogued corridor to Madagascar on this site: Johannesburg (JNB), Port Louis (MRU) and Nairobi (NBO). Fares from every one of them are quoted in USD so the origins stay comparable. Separately issued sectors carry no protection if the first runs late.
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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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Port Louis airport (MRU) — SSR International, Mauritius: 2 catalogued departure corridors and 4 arrival corridors.
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Nairobi airport (NBO) — Jomo Kenyatta International, Kenya: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
Internal links on this site are placed from the data, not from a keyword list: a corridor is linked when it shares an origin, a destination, a carrier or an audience cluster with the page you are on. If a link above looks unrelated to your trip, it probably shares a carrier or a hub rather than a destination.
Gateway choice is a real lever on this continent. Positioning to a larger hub can open a nonstop where your local airport only offers a connection, and the fare difference between two African origins to the same Madagascar destination is regularly wider than the cost of the positioning sector. The catch is the ticket: unless both sectors are issued together, a delay on the positioning flight is your problem alone.
FAQ
Do I need a visa for Madagascar? Visa requirements vary by passport — most African nationals need a visa or eVisa, and some destinations offer visa-on-arrival. Check the embassy or official immigration portal before booking.
What currency is used in Madagascar? Madagascar uses the local currency. Plan on-the-ground spending in the local currency and compare airfares in USD.
How many routes go to Madagascar from Africa? Our catalogue lists 3 routes to Madagascar from 3 African airports — see the table above.
When are flights to Madagascar cheapest? Book 4-8 weeks ahead. Fares rise around the December holidays; mid-week departures are usually the cheapest.
Which airlines fly to Madagascar? Carriers on routes to Madagascar include Airlink, Ethiopian Airlines, Air Mauritius, Kenya Airways. See the per-route airlines in the table above.
How cheap are flights to Madagascar? The lowest fare in our cache to Madagascar is about $528 on NBO-TNR. Fares move with season — the route guides show month-by-month trends.
Search live fares
3 catalogued corridors into Madagascar means a live search will return several routings for the same dates; our lowest cached floor across them is $528. Dates move the price more than any other variable. Fares across all 3 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 Madagascar 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 Madagascar 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.