Flights Dar es Salaam -> Johannesburg (DAR-JNB) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency
15 scheduled departures a week link Dar es Salaam (DAR) in Tanzania with Johannesburg (JNB) — about 2 a day — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 3.5 hours.
Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg connects Tanzania with South Africa’s largest city, with around 15 flights a week. The route carries business travellers, traders, tourists and passengers connecting onward across southern Africa. Block time is about three and a half hours.
Great-circle distance Dar es Salaam–Johannesburg is about 2,436 km, computed from the stored coordinates of DAR (-6.88, 39.20) and JNB (-26.13, 28.24). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 2,436 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 DAR–JNB. 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 DAR–JNB: Airlink (4Z) and Kenya Airways (KQ). Our carrier table records checked-baggage baselines of 23 kg; Kenya Airways sits in SkyTeam, with no alliance recorded for 4Z. 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 DAR-JNB: Airlink and Kenya Airways, both flying direct to Johannesburg. The combination of two carriers gives the route a wide spread of departure times and keeps it well served through the week.
| Carrier | Baggage baseline | Alliance |
|---|---|---|
| Airlink (4Z) | 23 kg | - |
| Kenya Airways (KQ) | 23 kg | SkyTeam |
USD fares — DAR-JNB
$443 was the 2026-W29 reading in our weekly fare log for DAR–JNB, across 6 readings that range $239 to $470.
DAR-JNB fares rise around the December holidays and the southern-hemisphere summer. With two carriers competing, the route is competitively priced — three to six 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 15 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 DAR–JNB 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.
DAR–JNB fare history — 2026-W20 to 2026-W29
6 weekly readings between 2026-W20 and 2026-W29 put the cached DAR–JNB low between $239 and $470 — a $231 spread, 97% of the cheapest reading. The low landed in 2026-W25; the last reading in this table, 2026-W29, was $443. 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 | $470 | KQ |
| 2026-W23 | $442 | ET |
| 2026-W24 | $441 | KQ |
| 2026-W25 | $239 | — |
| 2026-W27 | $457 | ET |
| 2026-W29 | $443 | KQ |
The cached low fell 6% between the first and last reading, from $470 to $443. 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 $239 was achievable on DAR–JNB inside the window, so a quote well above $470 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.
Baggage on DAR–JNB: baselines, uplift and the exclusions
23 kg is the checked-baggage baseline our carrier table records for the 2 airlines on DAR–JNB, with a recorded diaspora uplift of up to +7 kg on Airlink. Baselines are economy figures and fare-family dependent. The allowance printed on your issued ticket overrides any table, this one included.
The baseline is the headline, the fare family is the contract. On DAR–JNB the same carrier will sell you a fare beneath its own advertised allowance, and those stripped buckets are exactly the ones that set record-low cached prices. Whatever a table says — this one included — the allowance on your issued itinerary is the number that will be enforced at the counter.
Where our table records a migrant or diaspora uplift — +7 kg on Airlink 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
15 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live DAR–JNB search returns several price points for the same day; our weekly fare log has recorded readings as low as $443 (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 DAR -> JNB on Aviasales ->
Three checks make a live DAR–JNB result comparable. Fix the passenger count and cabin first, because a per-passenger fare and a party total look identical on a results page. Then read the elapsed time next to the price — a one-stop itinerary and the 3.5-hour nonstop are different products at the same number. Then check whether the fare carries the bag you are actually taking.
If anything about your DAR–JNB trip can move, make it the dates. The gap between the cheapest and dearest departure month in our own fare log is routinely larger than any difference between one booking site and another. Fixed dates put you in competition with everyone else holding the same date, and the answer there is to book early rather than to keep looking.
About Johannesburg
6 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Johannesburg (JNB), O.R. Tambo International, ICAO FAOR, from 6 catalogued origins and 6 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Johannesburg, 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.
Johannesburg is South Africa’s largest city and the economic centre of southern Africa, a major hub for business and for onward air connections across the region. For travellers from Dar es Salaam it is a business and trade destination and a wide connecting point.
Beyond DAR, our catalogue reaches Johannesburg from 5 other origins: Abuja (ABV), Cape Town (CPT), Durban (DUR), Harare (HRE) and Luanda (LAD). That matters when the DAR–JNB 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 Dar es Salaam to Johannesburg? Direct DAR-JNB flights are operated by Airlink, Kenya Airways. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.
How long is the DAR-JNB flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 3.5 hours. The DAR-JNB route runs roughly 15 flights per week across all carriers.
How much does a DAR-JNB flight cost and when is it cheapest? Our rough planning range is $400-900 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 DAR-JNB? 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 Johannesburg? Johannesburg uses USD. Fares in this guide are quoted in USD; budget on-the-ground spending in USD.
Related routes and reading
- Dar es Salaam airport (DAR) — Julius Nyerere International, Tanzania: 11 catalogued departure corridors and 2 arrival corridors.
- Johannesburg airport (JNB) — O.R. Tambo International, South Africa: 39 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
Where this page covers one corridor, the linked airport guides cover the field: the full catalogued route list, based hub carriers, alliance mix and the compensation regime that applies there. Both DAR and JNB are linked deliberately, because departure airport and operating carrier — not destination — decide which rules cover a delay.