Travellers reach Benin from 3 African airports on 3 catalogued routes, flown by Ethiopian Airlines, Arik Air, Royal Air Maroc. 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 Benin
3 catalogued corridors reach Benin from 3 African airports, flown by 3 carriers and totalling about 13 weekly departures, with block times from 0.8 h to 5.8 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accra (ACC) → Cotonou (COO) | ET, W3 | ~5 | ~0.8 | — | guide |
| Lagos (LOS) → Cotonou (COO) | W3, ET | ~5 | ~0.8 | — | guide |
| Casablanca (CMN) → Cotonou (COO) | AT | ~3 | ~5.8 | $817 | 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 Benin 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 are our own estimates, last revised 2026-05-19.
Airlines flying to Benin
3 carriers fly the corridors into Benin covered here; for the 3 we hold details on, checked-baggage baselines are 23 kg, and 2 of them belong to a global alliance. Baselines are economy figures and depend on the fare family you buy.
Carriers operating the catalogued routes to Benin, with alliance, baggage baseline and any diaspora or pilgrim baggage uplift:
| Airline | Alliance | Checked baggage | Diaspora uplift | Hajj/Umrah charter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ethiopian Airlines (ET) | Star Alliance | 23 kg | +5 kg | Yes |
| Arik Air (W3) | None | 23 kg | — | No |
| Royal Air Maroc (AT) | Oneworld | 23 kg | +23 kg | Yes |
Diaspora and migrant-worker baggage uplift recorded against these carriers: Royal Air Maroc +23 kg and Ethiopian Airlines +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.
Alliance membership on the Benin corridors — Oneworld (1), Star Alliance (1) — matters most when something goes wrong. On one ticket, an alliance partner can usually take a disrupted passenger without a new fare and bags stay through-checked; across alliances that becomes a commercial favour. Two separate tickets remove the protection entirely, whatever the alliance.
Visa & entry — Benin
This page does not state an entry requirement for Benin, because the rule depends on your passport. Check Benin’s own immigration or foreign-ministry guidance for your nationality before booking — it is the only authority worth acting on.
Visa requirements for Benin vary by passport. Check Benin’s official immigration or foreign-ministry guidance for your nationality before booking. On-the-ground currency: the local currency.
One caveat governs this whole section: nationality. Benin does not treat every African nationality alike — fees, eligibility and even the application channel differ between ECOWAS, EAC, Maghreb and Southern African passports, so rely only on a rule that names your passport.
The trap on a Benin 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. Treat that window as general guidance for travel into Benin 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 Benin 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.
If your dates cannot move, stop optimising and buy. Pilgrimage seasons, school terms and contract start dates concentrate demand into the same days, and on Benin corridors that concentration is what sets the price. Where dates can move, moving them beats every other tactic: our weekly log shows larger swings between departure months than between booking sites.
Cached fares to Benin
$817 is the lowest USD quote our cache holds on any corridor into Benin — on CMN-COO — out of 1 priced corridor 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 weekly Travelpayouts cache on routes to Benin (market lows across all carriers, each a dated observation; check live prices before booking):
| Corridor | Market low (USD) | Cheapest month seen |
|---|---|---|
| CMN-COO | $817 | $817 in Jul 2026 |
Book 4-8 weeks ahead. Fares rise around the December holidays; mid-week departures are usually the cheapest. Treat that as general guidance rather than a rule for every corridor into Benin: where frequency is thin, seat availability on the days you can actually travel constrains you long before the fare curve does.
What the cached numbers cannot tell you is whether a quote includes a checked bag. The cache stores a price, a carrier and a date, not a fare family, so on corridors where a low-cost carrier or a basic-economy bucket sets the floor, the cheapest screen number and the cheapest all-in number are different itineraries. Compare after adding the bag you will carry.
Departure airports for Benin
3 African airports have a catalogued corridor to Benin on this site: Accra (ACC), Casablanca (CMN) and Lagos (LOS). 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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Accra airport (ACC) — Kotoka International, Ghana: 11 catalogued departure corridors and 3 arrival corridors.
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Casablanca airport (CMN) — Mohammed V International, Morocco: 17 catalogued departure corridors and 0 arrival corridors.
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Lagos airport (LOS) — Murtala Muhammed International, Nigeria: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 2 arrival corridors.
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 Benin 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 Benin? Visa requirements depend on your passport. Check the destination’s official immigration or foreign-ministry guidance for your nationality before booking.
What currency is used in Benin? Benin uses the local currency. Plan on-the-ground spending in the local currency and compare airfares in USD.
How many routes go to Benin from Africa? Our catalogue lists 3 routes to Benin from 3 African airports — see the table above.
When are flights to Benin cheapest? Book 4-8 weeks ahead. Fares rise around the December holidays; mid-week departures are usually the cheapest.
Which airlines fly to Benin? Carriers on routes to Benin include Ethiopian Airlines, Arik Air, Royal Air Maroc. See the per-route airlines in the table above.
How cheap are flights to Benin? The lowest cached fare to Benin in our weekly snapshot was about $817 on CMN-COO — a dated observation, not a current price. Fares move with season; the route guides show each fare with the date it was found.
Search live fares
3 catalogued corridors into Benin means a live search will return several routings for the same dates; the lowest cached floor across them in our weekly snapshot was $817 — a dated observation, not a current price. 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.
Search flights to Benin on Aviasales ->
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 Benin and a nonstop are different products. And check whether the fare includes the checked bag you will actually carry.
Search a whole month rather than a single date where you can. Our weekly fare log shows movement between departure months on these corridors that dwarfs the difference between one booking gate and another, so a flexible-date search does more work than five rigid ones. Where dates cannot move, book earlier instead.