Cairo to Istanbul

Flights Cairo -> Istanbul (CAI-IST) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency

7 scheduled departures a week link Cairo (CAI) in Egypt with Istanbul (IST) — roughly one a day — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 2.0 hours.

Flight CAI -> IST is operated by EgyptAir, Turkish Airlines (~7 flights per week, ~2.0h 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 Cairo–Istanbul is about 1,263 km, computed from the stored coordinates of CAI (30.12, 31.41) and IST (41.28, 28.75). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 1,263 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 CAI–IST. 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–IST: EgyptAir (MS) and Turkish Airlines (TK). Our carrier table records checked-baggage baselines from 23 kg to 30 kg; the group spans 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.

All 2 carriers here sit inside Star Alliance, which makes CAI–IST unusually clean for connecting itineraries: a bag tagged at CAI can normally be through-checked to a final destination beyond IST on a single ticket, and an irregular-operations rebooking has a partner metal to move you onto. The trade-off is price — a single-alliance corridor has less of the cross-alliance undercutting that pushes fares down elsewhere.

The baggage baselines are not equal. Turkish Airlines records 30 kg in our table against 23 kg on EgyptAir — a 7 kg gap. On a corridor where a second bag is commonly bought at the airport, that gap is often worth more than the fare difference between the two airlines, so compare the all-in number rather than the headline fare.

USD fares — CAI-IST

$175 was the lowest one-way economy price the Travelpayouts feed returned in our weekly snapshot for CAI–IST on NE, for a 2026-07-24T11:50:00+02:00 departure. That is a single cached observation on this one corridor — not a low across the site’s fare cache, and not a live price — so read it as an observed floor for CAI–IST on that date.

As a rough planning range (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare), economy on CAI-IST 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.

Across the 12 departure months our cache holds a one-way low for, the cheapest reading on CAI–IST was $90 for a Oct 2026 departure and the dearest was $163 for Jun 2027 — a spread of $73 between the best and worst month in the same cache. Month-to-month movement of that size is normal on this corridor and is usually worth more than any single booking trick.

The $175 quote in our cache is a nonstop itinerary of 4 h 35 m, which is the cleanest case: one flight number, one bag tag, one carrier responsible end to end. It also means the price floor on CAI–IST does not depend on a connection holding together, so a delay costs you time rather than a missed onward sector.

Has the CAI–IST fare moved? 4 weekly readings

4 weekly readings between 2026-W23 and 2026-W29 put the cached CAI–IST low between $175 and $184 — a $9 spread, 5% of the cheapest reading. The low landed in 2026-W23; the last reading in this table, 2026-W29, was $178. Each row is one weekly snapshot of the cheapest published quote, not an average of everything sold that week.

The cached low was effectively flat end to end — $175 at the start of the window against $178 at the end. Read it with the sample size in front of you: 4 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 $175 was achievable on CAI–IST inside the window, so a quote well above $184 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–IST?

Entry rule for Turkey, by passport: Depends on passport. South African passports need a visa — a one-month single-entry e-Visa is available at evisa.gov.tr; Namibian passports can use the e-Visa; Nigerian, Kenyan, Ghanaian and Botswanan passports are listed as visa required. Fee Varies by nationality — shown on evisa.gov.tr; maximum stay One month on the South African single-entry e-Visa. That row names the passports it covers; for any other passport, check the linked government portal before booking.

Worth knowing before you book: Print a copy of any e-Visa for check-in.

Read the row above against your own passport. It names the nationalities it covers, and an ECOWAS, EAC or Maghreb passport not named there can face a different fee, a different processing route or no eligibility at all for the same destination. Entry rules change without notice, so the linked government portal is the authority, not this table.

Search live fares

7 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live CAI–IST search returns several price points for the same day; our cached floor for the corridor is $175. Scheduled nonstop block time is 2.0 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.

Search CAI -> IST on Aviasales ->

A live CAI–IST 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.

Flexible dates are the highest-leverage setting on this corridor. Our own cache shows month-to-month movement on CAI–IST 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 Istanbul

3 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Istanbul (IST), Istanbul Airport, ICAO LTFM, from 3 catalogued origins and 3 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Istanbul, 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.

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

Beyond CAI, our catalogue reaches Istanbul from 2 other origins: Casablanca (CMN) and Dar es Salaam (DAR). That matters when the CAI–IST 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.

Istanbul is a based hub for Turkish Airlines. A hub airport behaves differently from an outstation: connecting banks are built around it, spare aircraft and crew sit there, and a disruption is far more likely to be recovered the same day. It also means the hub carrier usually sets the price on routes into IST, and competitors price against it rather than the other way round.

FAQ

Which airlines fly Cairo to Istanbul? Direct CAI-IST flights are operated by EgyptAir, Turkish Airlines. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.

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

How much does a CAI-IST 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 CAI-IST? 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 Istanbul? Istanbul uses USD. Fares in this guide are quoted in USD; budget on-the-ground spending in USD.

Related routes and reading

• Cairo airport (CAI) — Cairo International, Egypt: 12 catalogued departure corridors and 1 arrival corridor.
• Istanbul airport (IST) — Istanbul Airport, Turkey: 0 catalogued departure corridors and 3 arrival corridors.

The airport guides carry what a corridor page cannot: the full catalogued route list at each end, the based hub carriers, the alliance mix and the compensation regime of the country that airport sits in. On a connecting itinerary the transfer airport’s rules matter as much as the destination’s, which is why CAI–IST links both ends rather than only the arrival.