Flights from Nairobi to Mogadishu (NBO-MGQ): Airlines, USD Fares

Flights Nairobi -> Mogadishu (NBO-MGQ) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency

7 scheduled departures a week link Nairobi (NBO) in Kenya with Mogadishu (MGQ) — roughly one a day — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 2.0 hours. Our catalogue scores corridor demand 6/10 and files it as an intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor.

Flight NBO -> MGQ is operated by Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines (~7 flights per week, ~2.0h block time). This is an intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor, with typical economy USD fares in the $500-1,500 band. Intra-Africa and Gulf-hub transit fares move week-to-week; 4-8 weeks is the typical sweet spot.

Great-circle distance Nairobi–Mogadishu is about 1,002 km, computed from the stored coordinates of NBO (-1.32, 36.93) and MGQ (2.01, 45.30). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 1,002 km against a scheduled 2.0-hour block time — and the fuel-and-crew economics behind the fare floor. It does not fix a compensation amount. No fixed-tariff compensation scheme reaches NBO–MGQ. EU261 and UK261 do band by distance, but they only cover flights departing an EU/EEA or UK airport — plus arrivals there on a bloc-licensed carrier — and neither endpoint here is one, whoever operates the flight. The Montreal Convention 1999 is what applies, and it pays provable loss, not a tariff.

Airlines on this route

2 carriers operate NBO–MGQ: Kenya Airways (KQ) and Ethiopian Airlines (ET). Our carrier table records checked-baggage baselines of 23 kg; the group spans SkyTeam and Star Alliance. That mix decides three things — the fare floor, whether your bag is through-checked on a connection, and which delay regulation covers you.

The NBO–MGQ carriers do not share one alliance — SkyTeam and Star Alliance are represented — and that has a concrete consequence. Mileage earning and lounge access do not carry across the split, and more importantly a connection built across two of these airlines is only through-checked when the two tickets are issued as one. Two separate confirmations mean you collect the bag, clear immigration where required, and check in again — and a missed second flight is your cost, not the airline’s.

Our carrier table records a diaspora / migrant-worker baggage uplift of +5 kg on Kenya Airways and +5 kg on Ethiopian Airlines. Read that as a carrier promotion, not a universal entitlement: uplifts of this kind are normally tied to specific fare families and specific corridors, they are rarely honoured on a codeshare or interline segment issued by another airline, and the cheapest promotional fare buckets are the ones most often excluded. Confirm the allowance against your own booking class before you pack to it.

USD fares — NBO-MGQ

$528 is the most recent weekly reading in our fare log for NBO–MGQ, taken in 2026-W25, across 2 readings that range $528 to $654. The point-in-time fare cache holds no entry for this corridor, so the weekly log is the observed evidence here.

Typical economy fares on NBO-MGQ sit in the $500-1,500 range. Live cached fares from Travelpayouts appear in the panel below; fare-month seasonality follows.

Book 4-8 weeks ahead. Fares rise around the December holidays; mid-week departures are usually the cheapest. That window is cluster guidance for an intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor rather than a rule for this single pairing; on a corridor with 7 weekly departures, the practical constraint is often seat availability on the days you can actually travel, not the headline fare.

One thing our fare data cannot tell you: whether the quote includes a checked bag. The cache stores a price and a carrier, not a fare family. On NBO–MGQ that matters most where a low-cost carrier or a basic-economy bucket is in the mix, because the cheapest screen number and the cheapest all-in number are then two different itineraries. Compare after adding the bag you will actually carry.

Baggage on NBO–MGQ: baselines, uplift and the exclusions

23 kg is the checked-baggage baseline our carrier table records for the 2 airlines on NBO–MGQ, with a recorded diaspora uplift of up to +5 kg on Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines. Baselines are economy figures and fare-family dependent. The allowance printed on your issued ticket overrides any table, this one included.

The baseline is the headline, the fare family is the contract. On NBO–MGQ the same carrier will sell you a fare beneath its own advertised allowance, and those stripped buckets are exactly the ones that set record-low cached prices. Whatever a table says — this one included — the allowance on your issued itinerary is the number that will be enforced at the counter.

Where our table records a migrant or diaspora uplift — +5 kg on Kenya Airways and +5 kg on Ethiopian Airlines — three exclusions usually bite. The uplift attaches to nominated corridors rather than the whole network; it rarely survives onto a codeshare or interline segment operated and ticketed by a different airline; and the deepest-discount fare buckets are commonly carved out. None of that makes the uplift fictional, but it does mean it has to be confirmed against your booking class, in writing, before you pack to it.

Is the cheap NBO–MGQ itinerary really nonstop?

2.0 hours is the scheduled nonstop block time on NBO–MGQ; any itinerary a search returns well above that is connecting, whatever the screen calls it. “Direct” is a flight-number description, not a promise of a single takeoff and landing. Two separately issued sectors are not one contract.

The distinction is not pedantry. A direct flight keeps one flight number through an intermediate stop, so it can sit in the nonstop filter of a search engine while adding an hour on the ground and a second departure to miss. A connecting itinerary changes flight number and usually aircraft. On NBO–MGQ the practical test is the elapsed-time figure: compare it against the 2.0-hour block time before you compare prices.

The second trap is the ticket, not the routing. Two cheap sectors bought separately to reach Mogadishu are not one contract: your bag is not through-checked, you re-clear security and often immigration at the transfer point, and if the first leg lands late the second airline owes you nothing — no rebooking, no refund, no duty of care. A single ticket that costs more can be the cheaper outcome the first time anything slips.

Search live fares

7 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live NBO–MGQ search returns several price points for the same day; the most recent weekly reading in our fare log was $528. Scheduled nonstop block time is 2.0 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.

Search NBO -> MGQ on Aviasales ->

A live NBO–MGQ search is only comparable once three things are pinned: the cabin and passenger count, so totals are like for like; the elapsed time, which separates a genuine nonstop from a routing that merely costs the same; and the baggage the fare includes. Skip any of the three and you are comparing two different products.

Date flexibility beats every other lever on NBO–MGQ. Month-scanning surfaces the seasonal shape our fare log records; repeated searching on one fixed date mostly surfaces the same fare bucket. When the calendar is not negotiable — pilgrimage, school holidays, a job start — the useful move is to buy sooner, because scarcity, not timing, is what sets the price then.

About Mogadishu

2 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Mogadishu (MGQ), Aden Adde International, ICAO HCMM, from 2 catalogued origins and 2 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Mogadishu, not the airport’s published schedule. Each of those corridors has its own guide with carriers, weekly frequency, scheduled block time and whatever the fare cache holds.

Mogadishu, Somalia — destination on the intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor. Destination currency: USD (we quote in USD throughout this guide).

Beyond NBO, our catalogue reaches Mogadishu from 1 other origin: Addis Ababa (ADD). That matters when the NBO–MGQ fare is unattractive: on a continent where positioning flights are cheap, flying out of a different gateway is a real option, and each of those corridors has its own guide, carriers and cached fare floor on this site.

Where our airport file holds no coordinates, hub carriers or country row for a destination, this page says less rather than guessing — no distance band, no hub analysis, no currency note. Mogadishu is catalogued here on the strength of the NBO–MGQ corridor itself: the carriers our route file records, the estimated weekly frequency, the scheduled block time and whatever the fare cache has seen. That is a narrower page, and an honest one.

FAQ

Which airlines fly Nairobi to Mogadishu? Direct NBO-MGQ flights are operated by Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.

How long is the NBO-MGQ flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 2.0 hours. The NBO-MGQ route runs roughly 7 flights per week across all carriers.

How much does a NBO-MGQ flight cost and when is it cheapest? Typical economy fares sit in the $500-1,500 USD band. Intra-Africa and Gulf-hub transit fares move week-to-week; 4-8 weeks is the typical sweet spot.

What is the checked baggage allowance on NBO-MGQ? It varies by carrier and fare class — see the baggage-baseline column in the carrier table above. Full-service carriers usually include 23-30 kg, while low-cost carriers sell it as an add-on. Confirm on the airline’s site before booking.

What currency is used in Mogadishu? Mogadishu uses USD. Fares in this guide are quoted in USD; budget on-the-ground spending in USD.

Related routes and reading

2 onward links follow for NBO–MGQ, derived from shared endpoints, shared carriers and shared audience clusters rather than keyword similarity. The note after each says what that page adds that this one does not. Each corridor entry carries that route’s carriers, estimated weekly frequency, scheduled block time and demand score straight from our route file.

• Nairobi airport (NBO) — Jomo Kenyatta International, Kenya: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
• Mogadishu airport (MGQ) — Aden Adde International, Somalia: 0 catalogued departure corridors and 2 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.

The corridor links are there to be used as alternatives, not as further reading. If the NBO–MGQ fare or schedule does not work, a different African gateway to Mogadishu is often the better fix — positioning within the continent is cheap relative to the long-haul sector, and the fare gap between two origins to the same destination is regularly wider than the positioning ticket. The catch is that separately issued sectors carry no protection if the first one runs late.