Nairobi to Antananarivo

Flights Nairobi -> Antananarivo (NBO-TNR) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency

3 scheduled departures a week link Nairobi (NBO) in Kenya with Antananarivo (TNR) — one every 2.3 days on average — flown by 2 catalogued carriers at a scheduled block time near 4.0 hours.

Flight NBO -> TNR is operated by Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines (~3 flights per week, ~4.0h 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 Nairobi–Antananarivo is about 2,258 km, computed from the stored coordinates of NBO (-1.32, 36.93) and TNR (-18.80, 47.48). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 2,258 km against a scheduled 4.0-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 NBO–TNR. 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 NBO–TNR: 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 NBO–TNR 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 — NBO-TNR

$528 was the lowest one-way economy price the Travelpayouts feed returned in our weekly snapshot for NBO–TNR, for a 2026-08-17 departure, recorded 2026-07-16. 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 NBO–TNR on that date.

As a rough planning range (an editorial estimate, not an observed fare), economy on NBO-TNR 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 7 departure months our cache holds a one-way low for, the cheapest reading on NBO–TNR was $500 for a Sep 2026 departure and the dearest was $531 for Jul 2026 — a spread of $31 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.

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 NBO–TNR 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.

NBO–TNR fare history — 2026-W23 to 2026-W25

3 weekly readings between 2026-W23 and 2026-W25 put the cached NBO–TNR low between $571 and $1,039 — a $468 spread, 82% of the cheapest reading. The low landed in 2026-W24; the last reading in this table, 2026-W25, was $974. Each row is one weekly snapshot of the cheapest published quote, not an average of everything sold that week.

The cached low fell 6% between the first and last reading, from $1,039 to $974. Read it with the sample size in front of you: 3 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 $571 was achievable on NBO–TNR inside the window, so a quote well above $1,039 is worth a second search.

Carriers behind the readings: ET. Where a row shows a dash the gate returned no carrier code with the quote, which usually means a multi-carrier or agency-issued itinerary. Do not read a carrier name here as that airline’s own published fare — it is the marketing carrier on the cheapest itinerary a gate had loaded that week.

Is the cheap NBO–TNR itinerary really nonstop?

1 stop and 8 h 55 m elapsed is what our cheapest cached NBO–TNR itinerary actually looks like, against a 4.0-hour nonstop block time. “Direct” on a booking screen means one flight number, not one takeoff — the two are different products at the same price point.

The distinction is not pedantry. A direct flight keeps one flight number through an intermediate stop, so it can sit in the nonstop filter of a search engine while adding an hour on the ground and a second departure to miss. A connecting itinerary changes flight number and usually aircraft. On NBO–TNR the practical test is the elapsed-time figure: compare it against the 4.0-hour block time before you compare prices.

The second trap is the ticket, not the routing. Two cheap sectors bought separately to reach Antananarivo are not one contract: your bag is not through-checked, you re-clear security and often immigration at the transfer point, and if the first leg lands late the second airline owes you nothing — no rebooking, no refund, no duty of care. A single ticket that costs more can be the cheaper outcome the first time anything slips.

Search live fares

3 weekly departures across 2 carriers mean a live NBO–TNR search returns several price points for the same day; our cached floor for the corridor is $528. Scheduled nonstop block time is 4.0 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.

Search NBO -> TNR on Aviasales ->

Three checks make a live NBO–TNR 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 4.0-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 NBO–TNR 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 Antananarivo

3 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Antananarivo (TNR), Ivato International, ICAO FMMI, from 3 catalogued origins and 4 carriers in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Antananarivo, 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.

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

Beyond NBO, our catalogue reaches Antananarivo from 2 other origins: Johannesburg (JNB) and Port Louis (MRU). That matters when the NBO–TNR 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 Nairobi to Antananarivo? Direct NBO-TNR flights are operated by Kenya Airways, Ethiopian Airlines. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.

How long is the NBO-TNR flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 4.0 hours. The NBO-TNR route runs roughly 3 flights per week across all carriers.

How much does a NBO-TNR 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 NBO-TNR? 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 Antananarivo? Antananarivo uses USD. Fares in this guide are quoted in USD; budget on-the-ground spending in USD.

Related routes and reading

• Nairobi airport (NBO) — Jomo Kenyatta International, Kenya: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
• Antananarivo airport (TNR) — Ivato International, Madagascar: 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 NBO–TNR links both ends rather than only the arrival.