Flights Cairo -> Dubai (CAI-DXB) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency
35 scheduled departures a week link Cairo (CAI) in Egypt with Dubai (DXB) — about 5 a day — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 3.5 hours.
Cairo to Dubai is one of the busiest corridors between Egypt and the Gulf, with around 35 flights a week — close to five a day. The route carries business travellers, traders, the large Egyptian community in the UAE, and passengers connecting onward. Block time is about three and a half hours.
Great-circle distance Cairo–Dubai is about 2,415 km, computed from the stored coordinates of CAI (30.12, 31.41) and DXB (25.25, 55.36). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 2,415 km against a scheduled 3.5-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 CAI–DXB. 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 CAI–DXB: EgyptAir (MS) and Emirates (EK). Our carrier table records checked-baggage baselines from 23 kg to 30 kg; EgyptAir sits in Star Alliance while our table puts Emirates 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.
Two carriers fly CAI-DXB: EgyptAir and Emirates, both full-service with a checked baggage allowance and meals included. Both fly direct to Dubai, and the very high combined frequency means a missed flight rarely costs more than a couple of hours.
| Carrier | Baggage baseline | Alliance |
|---|---|---|
| EgyptAir (MS) | 23 kg | Star Alliance |
| Emirates (EK) | 30 kg | none |
USD fares — CAI-DXB
$266 was the 2026-W29 reading in our weekly fare log for CAI–DXB, across 6 readings that range $214 to $274.
CAI-DXB fares move with the labour and trade calendar and rise around the December holidays. With two carriers and very high frequency, the route is among the better-priced Gulf links — two to five weeks of lead time usually secures a reasonable economy fare in USD.
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 35 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 CAI–DXB 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.
What 6 weeks of cached fares show on CAI–DXB
6 weekly readings between 2026-W20 and 2026-W29 put the cached CAI–DXB low between $214 and $274 — a $60 spread, 28% of the cheapest reading. The low landed in 2026-W27; the last reading in this table, 2026-W29, was $266. Each row is one weekly snapshot of the cheapest published quote, not an average of everything sold that week.
| ISO week | Cached low (USD) | Carrier on the quote |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-W20 | $274 | KU |
| 2026-W23 | $252 | KU |
| 2026-W24 | $258 | SV |
| 2026-W25 | $260 | SV |
| 2026-W27 | $214 | SV |
| 2026-W29 | $266 | KU |
The cached low was effectively flat end to end — $274 at the start of the window against $266 at the end. Read it with the sample size in front of you: 6 observations over a ten-week window is a signal about this corridor’s volatility, not a forecast. What it does establish is a defensible floor — you now know $214 was achievable on CAI–DXB inside the window, so a quote well above $274 is worth a second search.
Each row is a single weekly snapshot of the cheapest published quote, taken on one day, not an average of everything sold that week. Two consequences follow. A one-week dip can be a single small fare bucket rather than a trend, and a gap between weeks means we did not sample, not that fares vanished.
Do you need a visa to fly CAI–DXB?
Entry rule for United Arab Emirates, by passport: Depends on passport. A visa on arrival is open only to South African and Kenyan passport holders who also hold a valid residence permit from the US, an EU state, the UK, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand or Canada; without one, arrange a UAE visa before travel. Nigeria and Ghana are not on that list. Other passports: check the official UAE rules for your nationality. Fee Visa on arrival: AED 100 (14 days) or AED 250 (60 days); fees for visas arranged in advance vary; maximum stay 14 days (extendable once in the UAE) or 60 days (not extendable) on the visa on arrival.
| Entry type | Fee | Maximum stay | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depends on passport. A visa on arrival is open only to South African and Kenyan passport holders who also hold a valid residence permit from the US, an EU state, the UK, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand or Canada; without one, arrange a UAE visa before travel. Nigeria and Ghana are not on that list. Other passports: check the official UAE rules for your nationality | Visa on arrival: AED 100 (14 days) or AED 250 (60 days); fees for visas arranged in advance vary | 14 days (extendable once in the UAE) or 60 days (not extendable) on the visa on arrival | United Arab Emirates official source |
Worth knowing before you book: Overstaying a UAE visa on arrival is fined AED 50 per day (UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 25 June 2026).
The trap on CAI–DXB is not usually the destination visa — it is the transit. A connection can put you airside in a third country that requires a transit visa for your nationality even though you never leave the terminal, and airlines deny boarding at origin when documentation for the whole itinerary is not in order. Check every country your ticket touches, not just United Arab Emirates, and check it against your own passport rather than a fellow traveller’s.
Search live fares
35 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live CAI–DXB search returns several price points for the same day; our weekly fare log has recorded readings as low as $266 (see the dated history on this page). Scheduled nonstop block time is 3.5 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.
Search CAI -> DXB on Aviasales ->
A live CAI–DXB 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 CAI–DXB. 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 Dubai
14 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Dubai (DXB), Dubai International, ICAO OMDB, from 14 catalogued origins and 7 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Dubai, 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.
Dubai is the largest city of the United Arab Emirates and one of the world’s busiest aviation and trade hubs. It has one of the largest Egyptian communities in the Gulf. For travellers from Cairo it is a work, business and trade destination and a major connecting point onward across Asia.
Beyond CAI, our catalogue reaches Dubai from 13 other origins: Abuja (ABV), Addis Ababa (ADD), Casablanca (CMN), Cape Town (CPT), Dar es Salaam (DAR), Dakar (DSS), Durban (DUR), Entebbe (EBB), Harare (HRE), Johannesburg (JNB), Kigali (KGL) and Lagos (LOS), and 1 further catalogued origin listed on the Dubai airport page. That matters when the CAI–DXB 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 Cairo to Dubai? Direct CAI-DXB flights are operated by EgyptAir, Emirates. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.
How long is the CAI-DXB flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 3.5 hours. The CAI-DXB route runs roughly 35 flights per week across all carriers.
How much does a CAI-DXB flight cost and when is it cheapest? Our rough planning range is $500-1,100 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 CAI-DXB? 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. Diaspora travellers should check each carrier’s extra-baggage uplift.
Do I need a visa for United Arab Emirates? depends on passport — there is no general visa on arrival; South African and Kenyan holders of certain residence permits can get one. Visa rules differ by passport — check the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs notice at https://www.mofa.gov.ae/en/mediahub/news/2026/6/25/uae-grants-visa-on-arrival before booking.
Related routes and reading
- Cairo airport (CAI) — Cairo International, Egypt: 12 catalogued departure corridors and 1 arrival corridor.
- Dubai airport (DXB) — Dubai International, United Arab Emirates: 0 catalogued departure corridors and 14 arrival corridors.
The corridor links are there to be used as alternatives, not as further reading. If the CAI–DXB fare or schedule does not work, a different African gateway to Dubai 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.