Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar

Flights Dar es Salaam -> Zanzibar (DAR-ZNZ) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency

7 scheduled departures a week link Dar es Salaam (DAR) in Tanzania with Zanzibar (ZNZ) — roughly one a day — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 0.5 hours.

Flight DAR -> ZNZ is operated by Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines (~7 flights per week, ~0.5h 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 Dar es Salaam–Zanzibar is about 73 km, computed from the stored coordinates of DAR (-6.88, 39.20) and ZNZ (-6.22, 39.22). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 73 km against a scheduled 0.5-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–ZNZ. 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–ZNZ: Kenya Airways (KQ) and Ethiopian Airlines (ET). 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.

The DAR–ZNZ 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 +5 kg on Kenya Airways and +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 — DAR-ZNZ

$79 was the lowest one-way economy price the Travelpayouts feed returned in our weekly snapshot for DAR–ZNZ on UI, for a 2026-07-21T07:15:00+03:00 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 DAR–ZNZ on that date.

As a rough planning range (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare), economy on DAR-ZNZ 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 5 departure months our cache holds a one-way low for, the cheapest reading on DAR–ZNZ was $40 for a Jul 2026 departure and the dearest was $46 for Sep 2026 — a spread of $6 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 $79 quote in our cache is a nonstop itinerary of 0 h 30 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 DAR–ZNZ does not depend on a connection holding together, so a delay costs you time rather than a missed onward sector.

DAR–ZNZ fare history — 2026-W23 to 2026-W29

4 weekly readings between 2026-W23 and 2026-W29 put the cached DAR–ZNZ low between $64 and $79 — a $15 spread, 23% of the cheapest reading. The low landed in 2026-W23; the last reading in this table, 2026-W29, was $79. Each row is one weekly snapshot of the cheapest published quote, not an average of everything sold that week.

The cached low rose 23% between the first and last reading, from $64 to $79. 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 $64 was achievable on DAR–ZNZ inside the window, so a quote well above $79 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.

Checked baggage and uplift on DAR–ZNZ — and what is not covered

23 kg is the checked-baggage baseline our carrier table records for the 2 airlines on DAR–ZNZ, with a recorded diaspora uplift of up to +5 kg on Kenya Airways and Ethiopian Airlines. 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–ZNZ 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 — +5 kg on Kenya Airways and +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.

Search live fares

7 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live DAR–ZNZ search returns several price points for the same day; our cached floor for the corridor is $79. Scheduled nonstop block time is 0.5 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.

Search DAR -> ZNZ on Aviasales ->

Comparing DAR–ZNZ 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 0.5-hour nonstop. And the baggage line has to be checked, because the cheapest fare family is usually the one carrying the least.

If anything about your DAR–ZNZ 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 Zanzibar

3 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Zanzibar (ZNZ), Abeid Amani Karume International, ICAO HTZA, from 3 catalogued origins and 4 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Zanzibar, 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.

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

Beyond DAR, our catalogue reaches Zanzibar from 2 other origins: Johannesburg (JNB) and Nairobi (NBO). That matters when the DAR–ZNZ 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.

On the ground Tanzania uses TZS, while every fare on this site is quoted in USD. That split is deliberate: USD is the only currency that makes a Lagos fare and a Nairobi fare comparable on one page, but it means the card you pay with will convert twice if your bank settles in a third currency. Airline sites often offer payment in TZS or in your home currency — the airline’s own rate is rarely the better of the two.

FAQ

Which airlines fly Dar es Salaam to Zanzibar? Direct DAR-ZNZ flights are operated by Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.

How long is the DAR-ZNZ flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 0.5 hours. The DAR-ZNZ route runs roughly 7 flights per week across all carriers.

How much does a DAR-ZNZ 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 DAR-ZNZ? 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 Zanzibar? Zanzibar 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.
• Zanzibar airport (ZNZ) — Abeid Amani Karume International, Tanzania: 0 catalogued departure corridors and 3 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 ZNZ are linked deliberately, because departure airport and operating carrier — not destination — decide which rules cover a delay.