Flights Accra -> Cotonou (ACC-COO) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency
5 scheduled departures a week link Accra (ACC) in Ghana with Cotonou (COO) — one every 1.4 days on average — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 0.8 hours.
Flight ACC -> COO is operated by Ethiopian Airlines, Arik Air (~5 flights per week, ~0.8h block time). This is an intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor. As a rough planning range (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare), economy runs about $500-1,500; the fare observation on this page shows what our weekly snapshot recorded and when. Intra-Africa and Gulf-hub transit fares move week-to-week; 4-8 weeks is the typical sweet spot.
Great-circle distance Accra–Cotonou is about 294 km, computed from the stored coordinates of ACC (5.61, -0.17) and COO (6.36, 2.38). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 294 km against a scheduled 0.8-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 ACC–COO. 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 ACC–COO: Ethiopian Airlines (ET) and Arik Air (W3). Our carrier table records checked-baggage baselines of 23 kg; Ethiopian Airlines sits in Star Alliance while our table puts Arik Air outside a global alliance. That mix decides three things — the fare floor, whether your bag is through-checked on a connection, and which delay regulation covers you.
| Carrier | Baggage baseline | Alliance |
|---|---|---|
| Ethiopian Airlines (ET) | 23 kg | Star Alliance |
| Arik Air (W3) | 23 kg | none |
Our carrier table records a diaspora / migrant-worker baggage uplift of +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 — ACC-COO
$500-1,500 USD is the economy planning band this catalogue applies to ACC–COO; neither our fare cache nor the weekly log holds a quote for the corridor, so there is no observed floor to publish. An absent entry means unqueried, not unflown.
As a rough planning range (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare), economy on ACC-COO runs about $500-1,500; the fare observation on this page shows what our weekly snapshot recorded and when. Cached fares from a weekly Travelpayouts snapshot appear in the panel below, with their observation date; 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 general guidance rather than a rule for this single pairing; on a corridor with 5 weekly departures, the practical constraint is often seat availability on the days you can actually travel, not the headline fare.
Treat every cached figure on ACC–COO as a fare, not as a trip cost. What the cache cannot see is the booking class behind the number: checked baggage, seat selection and change rights are all fare-family attributes, and the buckets that produce record-low quotes are the ones that include least. Price the trip you are actually taking.
Checked baggage and uplift on ACC–COO — and what is not covered
23 kg is the checked-baggage baseline our carrier table records for the 2 airlines on ACC–COO, with a recorded diaspora uplift of up to +5 kg on Ethiopian Airlines. Baselines are economy figures and fare-family dependent. The allowance printed on your issued ticket overrides any table, this one included.
A baggage baseline is the economy checked allowance an airline advertises as standard. It is not what your ticket necessarily grants. The same airline sells fare families below the baseline — hand-baggage-only and basic-economy buckets are exactly the ones that surface as the cheapest ACC–COO quote in any fare cache, including ours. The allowance printed on your itinerary overrides any table, ours included.
Where our table records a migrant or diaspora uplift — +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.
Connections on ACC–COO: what “direct” actually buys you
0.8 hours is the scheduled nonstop block time on ACC–COO; 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 ACC–COO the practical test is the elapsed-time figure: compare it against the 0.8-hour block time before you compare prices.
The second trap is the ticket, not the routing. Two cheap sectors bought separately to reach Cotonou 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
5 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live ACC–COO search returns several price points for the same day; we hold no observed floor for this corridor, so the live result is the only number. Scheduled nonstop block time is 0.8 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.
Search ACC -> COO on Aviasales ->
Comparing ACC–COO quotes fairly takes three corrections. Passenger count and cabin have to match across the tabs you are comparing. Elapsed time has to be read beside the price, since a connection can add most of a day to the 0.8-hour nonstop. And the baggage line has to be checked, because the cheapest fare family is usually the one carrying the least.
Flexible dates are the highest-leverage setting on this corridor. Our own cache shows month-to-month movement on ACC–COO that dwarfs the difference between booking gates, so one search across a whole month tells you more than five searches on a single date. Where the dates cannot move — a pilgrimage window, a school term, a contract start — book earlier instead of searching harder.
About Cotonou
3 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Cotonou (COO), Cardinal Bernardin Gantin International, ICAO DBBB, from 3 catalogued origins and 3 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Cotonou, 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.
Cotonou, Benin — destination on the intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor. Destination currency: USD (we quote in USD throughout this guide).
Beyond ACC, our catalogue reaches Cotonou from 2 other origins: Casablanca (CMN) and Lagos (LOS). That matters when the ACC–COO 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.
FAQ
Which airlines fly Accra to Cotonou? Direct ACC-COO flights are operated by Ethiopian Airlines, Arik Air. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.
How long is the ACC-COO flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 0.8 hours. The ACC-COO route runs roughly 5 flights per week across all carriers.
How much does a ACC-COO flight cost and when is it cheapest? Our rough planning range is $500-1,500 USD (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare); the fare observation on this page shows what our weekly snapshot recorded and when. 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 ACC-COO? 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 Cotonou? Cotonou uses USD. Fares in this guide are quoted in USD; budget on-the-ground spending in USD.
Related routes and reading
- Accra airport (ACC) — Kotoka International, Ghana: 11 catalogued departure corridors and 3 arrival corridors.
- Cotonou airport (COO) — Cardinal Bernardin Gantin International, Benin: 0 catalogued departure corridors and 3 arrival corridors.
The corridor links are there to be used as alternatives, not as further reading. If the ACC–COO fare or schedule does not work, a different African gateway to Cotonou 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.