Air travel from Nairobi to Madagascar, HELP!

Hi,
I am trying to book a flight to Antananarivo, Madagascar around december 21, from Nairobi (or Dar Es Salaam if possible), returning around January 7th. I have tried using the Air Madagascar site, as well as sky scanner.net, with no luck. Both sites state there are no flights, except for a very expensive one that goes through Johannesburg. I doubt the Air Madagascar flights are actually sold out, I just cant seem to find them. Anyone have tips from a recent flight to and from Tana? I searched for tips, and found a few from marigosa, but still cant figure this out. I am in rural Tanzania right now, so I dont really have access to travel agents :)

Thanks for any tips!

I think your problem is that you are trying to belatedly book a low frequency route during the peak travel season. I just did a search for NBO_ANT and nothing for Air Madagascar came up. Should have started looking 4-6 weeks ago! Sorry

Kenya Airways is showing availability for 20th or 22, but 21 is sold out.

Hi,

I’m afraid the bad news is that Air Madagascar has discontinued its service from Nairobi to Antananarivo, which explains why you can’t find any flights. The discontinuation is allegedly temporary, but I’ve been unable to get any information on when they’re likely to start flying the route again – definitely not in December, though.

If you want to fly into the country with Air Madagascar in order to get their discount on domestic flights, you could check out the cost of flying with Kenya Airways from Nairobi to Dzaoudzi or Moroni or with Air Mauritius to Mauritius and continuing from there with Air Mad. Air Tanzania also appears to have discontinued flights between Dar es Salaam and Moroni in the Comoro Islands, but you can check out Comores Aviation International, who are apparently still flying from Dar out to both Moroni and Anjouan in the Comoros. From either of those points you can pick up an Air Mad flight into Tana. Comores Aviation International are pretty expensive, but you can compare their charges with what it would cost you in cash and time to travel back to Nairobi.

If none of the above options appeal to you your best bet is probably Kenya Airways’ direct flight from Nairobi.

Whichever option you choose, though, one of your biggest problems is likely to be – as other posters have already pointed out – that flights in the pre-Christmas period are likely to be fully booked, or if there are places, the low-fare contingents will long ago have been exhausted.

As marogisa pointed out in #3, Kenya Airways is right now the only option for direct flights from Nairobi to Madagascar.

If you want to fly to Madagascar with Air Madagascar for the reasons marogisa pointed out in #3, you could consider also these options:

you can check out Comores Aviation International, who are apparently still flying from Dar out to both Moroni and Anjouan in the Comoros

Precision Air flies from Dar to Moroni three times per week and it's easy to book through their web. The OP could also fly from Nairobi to Moroni changing planes in Dar es Salaam with Precision Air.

Other options for flights from Kenya to Moroni are Kenya Airways and African Express Airways (I don't have references about African Express so I don't know if they'll be a reliable airline... you could consider to research about the quality and reliability of that airline). You could also look for flights to Mayotte with Kenyan Airways (maybe African Express too). You can fly from Moroni and from Mayotte to Madagascar with Air Madagascar (verify the schedule to see in what dates you can make it).