Flights to Kilimanjaro Airport

[knagelli]

Hi Experts , we are planning to book our tickets from Melbourne to Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) for next year. Based on the research I had done , unable to find any options to book Singapore Airlines or any other star alliance partners either revenue or miles. Can anyone please help me , if I am not searching correctly or if I have to fly through a different airport to make use of the star alliance partners. At the moment , only viable option I found is Qatar but I want to see every possibility of flying on SQ metal wherever possible. Appreciate your inputs and time.

 

[Mwenenzi]

Some direct airline options from EU.
QR is Oneworld.
Try via IST on Turkish (Star alliance) TK fly from MEL & SYD
A lot of people go to east Africa via NBO. Some via DAR

Kilimanjaro International Airport - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Julius Nyerere International Airport - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A map from the Great Circle Mapper

A map from the Great Circle Mapper

www.gcmap.com

 

[ShelleyB]

Very few major international airlines fly to Kilimanjaro, and when they do, it's usually much much more expensive than flying to a local major airport and then taking an internal flight. Qatar and Turkish fly to Kilimanjaro, but as mentioned are not Star Alliance. Your best bets are either via Nairobi as mentioned by @Mwenenzi or Dar es Salaam or Zanzibar. Lots of international airlines fly to all three locations, including carriers such as Qatar and Emirates, allowing a one-stop journey from Australia.

From those locations there are either multiple air options, or from Nairobi there is a shuttle to Arusha (the main town for safari departures in northern Tanzania). There is also a bus from Dar es Salaam to Arusha but it's an all day journey. Note that a complicating issue can be that Kenya is in a yellow fever endemic region, which means to enter other countries (including to Tanzania and Singapore) you will need to have had a yellow fever vaccine (and have the paperwork). Tanzania is not in a yellow fever endemic region.

As an aside if you really want to fly Singapore Airlines you will need to go via Jo'burg. It will then be a 2 stop journey on a local airline (probably via Dar es Salaam) to get to Kilimanjaro. That said, when we coming back from Kilimanjaro in Jan 2024 we can home via Jo'burg as revenue business flights were quite cheap. We were able to find business flights with Qatar from Jo'burg to Melbourne (via Doha) for $2500 AUD per person. This included Q-suites from Doha to Melbourne. Singapore Airlines was also very well priced on this route. You may want to search for your exact dates on this route and see what the pricing looks like.

 

[drron]

Just looked at SYD-NBO for the other east Africa thread and TK came in cheapest at 10300 whilst VA is 10800 using QR. Coming back that was with the VA wet lease flights. This routing can be a bit quicker.

 

[robbo135]

Ethiopian Airlines flies direct to JRO from ADD if you want Star Alliance.

To get to ADD, and want to fly SQ. The most direct would be to fly to DXB on SQ, and then get a ticket on ET flying DXB-ADD-JRO.

I flew SYD-HKG-DXB-ADD-JRO(with a quick stop in Mombasa) over 10 years ago. But had a stopover in HKG.

Edit: Also just thinking back to previous trip, flying through BKK was also an option.

So the Star Alliance option would be MEL-BKK-ADD-JRO.
MEL-BKK could be non-stop on TG or 1 stop with SQ, then BKK-ADD-JRO would be on ET.

 

[Mattg]

You should be able to redeem KrisFlyer miles to fly MEL-SIN-ADD-JRO on SQ and ET, but you won't be able to book this online. If Singapore Airlines has Saver availability on the MEL-SIN leg and Ethiopian has availability on SIN-ADD-JRO (which they often do), you should be able to book it with KrisFlyer miles over the phone.

If you book this as a round-trip Star Alliance award using KrisFlyer miles, you can even add a free stopover in one direction and have the option to book an open-jaw, e.g. fly into JRO and out of DAR (or whatever). You just can't have more than 6 flight sectors on your award ticket.

 

[Grrr]

Ethiopian Airlines flies direct to JRO from ADD

One of the many convoluted options I've found has a 7.5hr overnight layover in ADD prior to the JRO-ADD flight.

Would I be correct to assume that ADD is not a pleasant airport to try this in ? Would the business class lounges (if any) there make this an acceptable layover if family are involved ?

 

[Scarlett]

@knagelli, I second the use of ET as a large and reliable *A parter who have plenty of options through ADD. Their J product was fine from BKK when I flew it in Sep last year. Not SQ individual seats level J, but more than comfortable enough for my needs.

I had booked a decent value ET J airfare BKK-ADD-CAI return and had used SQ Y+ for the connecting flights from Australia to/from BKK. All were being credited to my TK *A account. Watch out for some of the fare buckets in case they’re non-crediting to SQ, which I assume is your aim.

@Grrr, if you can find a longer layover in ADD, I’d go for that. ET will give you a free hotel for the stopover, including transfer and meals if the timing is over main meal periods. I don’t know if 7.5 hours would be long enough for the hotel as you’d really only end up with three hours of sleep time. I deliberately booked a long layover in ADD as I wanted to go and see a bit of the city. Was put up at the Ethiopian Skylight hotel near the airport and it’s nice. Transfer was via minibus to/from the airport. ADD ET lounge is nothing great and because they tend to bank their flights, it’s generally quite busy.


ET B787 J seating. 2-2-2, but they are lie flat.


Transfer shuttle at ADD to Ethiopian Skylight hotel. Was easy to find and I had no wait.


Hotel restaurant where I had two of my three complimentary meals during the layover. I didn’t have lunch there as I’d caught a taxi from the hotel elsewhere during the day. Nothing special, just a buffet, but was mostly Ethiopian food and hit the spot.


They even did this smoking of incense thing which was different, but not unpleasant. I saw (and smelt) the same thing, just inside the entrance to the ET lounge at ADD.


ADD gate and concourse area at 2130 local time during a bank of flight departures.

I’ve just seen in that last pic the sign showing a Skylight hotel in the terminal. That might be a better option for a shorter layover!

 

[Grrr]

if you can find a longer layover in ADD, I’d go for that. ET will give you a free hotel for the stopover, including transfer and meals if the timing is over main meal periods

@Scarlett is this offered automatically, or do you need to ring up ?
There's an itinerary with Ethiopian to ADD, then Etihad from ADD onwards. There is an 18h overnight layover in ADD, but the whole thing would be booked through Ethiopian...