Flights Cairo -> Nairobi (CAI-NBO) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency
5 scheduled departures a week link Cairo (CAI) in Egypt with Nairobi (NBO) — one every 1.4 days on average — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 4.5 hours.
Flight CAI -> NBO is operated by EgyptAir, Kenya Airways (~5 flights per week, ~4.5h 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–Nairobi is about 3,545 km, computed from the stored coordinates of CAI (30.12, 31.41) and NBO (-1.32, 36.93). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 3,545 km against a scheduled 4.5-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–NBO. 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–NBO: EgyptAir (MS) and Kenya Airways (KQ). 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.
| Carrier | Baggage baseline | Alliance |
|---|---|---|
| EgyptAir (MS) | 23 kg | Star Alliance |
| Kenya Airways (KQ) | 23 kg | SkyTeam |
The CAI–NBO 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 +18 kg on EgyptAir and +5 kg on Kenya Airways. 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 — CAI-NBO
$571 was the 2026-W25 reading in our weekly fare log for CAI–NBO, across 2 readings that range $571 to $623.
As a rough planning range (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare), economy on CAI-NBO 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.
The fare family sits outside our data, and it is the piece that decides the real cost. A cached CAI–NBO quote records a price, a date and a carrier — not whether a 23 kg bag, a seat or a change is included. Where the corridor’s floor is set by a stripped fare, the ranking on screen reverses once the bag is added.
Entry rules at Nairobi (NBO)
Entry rule for Kenya, by passport: No eTA needed for most African nationals: East African Partner States (Burundi, DR Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda) up to 180 days; South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mauritius and others up to 90 days; Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Angola and others up to 60 days. Nationalities not on these lists need an eTA. Fee No eTA fee for exempt nationalities; check the eTA portal for others; maximum stay 180, 90 or 60 days depending on nationality (see the official list). That row names the passports it covers; for any other passport, check the linked government portal before booking.
| Entry type | Fee | Maximum stay | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|
| No eTA needed for most African nationals: East African Partner States (Burundi, DR Congo, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda) up to 180 days; South Africa, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mauritius and others up to 90 days; Nigeria, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Angola and others up to 60 days. Nationalities not on these lists need an eTA | No eTA fee for exempt nationalities; check the eTA portal for others | 180, 90 or 60 days depending on nationality (see the official list) | Kenya official source |
Worth knowing before you book: Exemption lists published on Kenya’s official eTA portal.
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.
Baggage on CAI–NBO: baselines, uplift and the exclusions
23 kg is the checked-baggage baseline our carrier table records for the 2 airlines on CAI–NBO, with a recorded diaspora uplift of up to +18 kg on EgyptAir. Baselines are economy figures and fare-family dependent. The allowance printed on your issued ticket overrides any table, this one included.
Read the baseline as an advertised standard rather than a guarantee. Airlines on CAI–NBO sell below it through hand-baggage and basic-economy fare families, and those are disproportionately the fares that appear as the corridor’s cheapest quote. The only allowance that binds anyone is the one printed on the ticket you hold.
Where our table records a migrant or diaspora uplift — +18 kg on EgyptAir and +5 kg on Kenya Airways — 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.
Search live fares
5 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live CAI–NBO search returns several price points for the same day; our weekly fare log has recorded readings as low as $571 (see the dated history on this page). Scheduled nonstop block time is 4.5 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.
Search CAI -> NBO on Aviasales ->
Comparing CAI–NBO 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 4.5-hour nonstop. And the baggage line has to be checked, because the cheapest fare family is usually the one carrying the least.
Date flexibility beats every other lever on CAI–NBO. 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 Nairobi
6 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Nairobi (NBO), Jomo Kenyatta International, ICAO HKJK, from 6 catalogued origins and 5 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Nairobi, 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.
Nairobi, Kenya — destination on the intra-Africa + Gulf hub transit corridor. Destination currency: USD (we quote in USD throughout this guide).
Beyond CAI, our catalogue reaches Nairobi from 5 other origins: Dar es Salaam (DAR), Entebbe (EBB), Johannesburg (JNB), Kigali (KGL) and Lagos (LOS). That matters when the CAI–NBO 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.
Nairobi is a based hub for Kenya Airways. 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 NBO, and competitors price against it rather than the other way round.
FAQ
Which airlines fly Cairo to Nairobi? Direct CAI-NBO flights are operated by EgyptAir, Kenya Airways. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.
How long is the CAI-NBO flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 4.5 hours. The CAI-NBO route runs roughly 5 flights per week across all carriers.
How much does a CAI-NBO 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-NBO? 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 Nairobi? Nairobi 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.
- Nairobi airport (NBO) — Jomo Kenyatta International, Kenya: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
The corridor links are there to be used as alternatives, not as further reading. If the CAI–NBO fare or schedule does not work, a different African gateway to Nairobi 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.