Flights from Nairobi to Medina (NBO-MED): Airlines, USD Fares

Flights Nairobi -> Medina (NBO-MED) — USD Fares, Airlines, Frequency

2 scheduled departures a week link Nairobi (NBO) in Kenya with Medina (MED) — one every 3.5 days on average — flown by 1 catalogued carrier at a scheduled block time near 6.0 hours. Our catalogue scores corridor demand 7/10 and files it as a Hajj/Umrah pilgrim corridor.

Nairobi to Medina is a pilgrimage route serving the Kenyan Muslim community, with around 2 flights a week. It carries pilgrims heading to Medina for Umrah and, in season, for Hajj — Medina being one of the two holy cities of Islam. Block time is about six hours.

Great-circle distance Nairobi–Medina is about 2,892 km, computed from the stored coordinates of NBO (-1.32, 36.93) and MED (24.55, 39.71). What the figure fixes is the sector profile — 2,892 km against a scheduled 6.0-hour block time — and the fuel-and-crew economics behind the fare floor. It does not fix a compensation amount. Saudi GACA reaches any flight to or from Saudi Arabia and obliges care, rebooking or a full refund and compensation where the cause sits inside the airline’s control — but it sets no distance tariff, so the kilometre figure buys you nothing on a claim here.

Airlines on this route

1 carrier operates NBO–MED: Saudia (SV), a full-service airline based in Saudi Arabia, a member of SkyTeam, with a 46 kg checked-baggage baseline in our table. Our route file puts the corridor at about 2 weekly departures with a scheduled block time near 6.0 hours.

Saudia operates NBO-MED, flying a full-service widebody direct to Medina with a generous checked baggage allowance and meals included — practical for pilgrims who often travel with substantial luggage. The direct service spares travellers a connection on a route flown by family groups.

Our carrier table records a diaspora / migrant-worker baggage uplift of +15 kg on Saudia. 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-MED

$270 is the lowest one-way economy price the Travelpayouts feed returned for NBO–MED. 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–MED on that date.

NBO-MED fares move almost entirely with the pilgrimage calendar. The weeks around Hajj and the popular Umrah periods are the most expensive and sell out far in advance — booking three to five months ahead is sensible, and many pilgrims travel as part of an organised package. Outside the peaks, six to ten weeks usually secures a workable economy fare in USD.

Across the 1 departure month our cache holds a one-way low for, the cheapest reading on NBO–MED is $270 for a Jul 2026 departure and the dearest is $270 for Jul 2026 — a spread of $0 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.

Passenger rights on NBO–MED — and which ones do not apply

1 regulator governs NBO–MED: Saudi GACA, which applies to any flight to or from Saudi Arabia. It obliges care, rebooking or a full refund and compensation for cancellations and long delays inside the airline’s control. There is no EU-style fixed distance tariff, so the corridor’s kilometre figure decides nothing about the amount you can claim.

What does not apply matters as much as what does, because claim-management services will happily open a file either way. On NBO–MED: EU261 does not reach this corridor at all — neither endpoint is an EU/EEA airport, and carrier nationality alone never triggers it, US DOT rules are irrelevant here, and would only ever cover refunds rather than compensation even if they applied and UK261 does not apply, since no leg touches a UK airport. Filing under a scheme that does not cover your itinerary costs weeks and gets a rejection, so match the regulation to the departure airport and the operating carrier before you start.

Visa and entry for Saudi Arabia

1 entry route applies to most African passports for Saudi Arabia (Umrah): Umrah e-visa via Nusuk platform. Fee SAR 535 (~$143 USD) including VAT and mandatory medical insurance; maximum stay 90 days inside KSA for Umrah; expires automatically after Hajj cap-date for Hajj-season travel.

Worth knowing before you book: Hajj visa is a separate process via the national Hajj commission (NAHCON, SAHUC, KAHCON, GHC) — NOT a tourist e-visa.

Read the row above against the right passport. Our visa file is compiled on a South African (ZA) passport as its reference, and this site covers the whole continent — an ECOWAS, EAC or Maghreb passport can face a different fee, a different processing route or no eligibility at all for the same destination. Verified 2026-05-18, next review 2026-08-18; rules change between reviews, so the linked government portal is the authority, not this table.

Search live fares

2 weekly departures across 1 carrier mean a live NBO–MED search returns several price points for the same day; our cached floor for the corridor is $270. Scheduled nonstop block time is 6.0 hours, so any result far above that is connecting whatever the screen says.

Search NBO -> MED on Aviasales ->

Three checks make a live NBO–MED 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 6.0-hour nonstop are different products at the same number. Then check whether the fare carries the bag you are actually taking.

Date flexibility beats every other lever on NBO–MED. Month-scanning surfaces the seasonal shape our fare log records; repeated searching on one fixed date mostly surfaces the same fare bucket. When the calendar is not negotiable — pilgrimage, school holidays, a job start — the useful move is to buy sooner, because scarcity, not timing, is what sets the price then.

About Medina

4 catalogued corridors in this site’s data reach Medina (MED), Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz, ICAO OEMA, from 4 catalogued origins and 1 carrier in total. That count is this site’s coverage of Medina, 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.

Medina is one of the two holy cities of Islam, home to the Prophet’s Mosque, a central destination for pilgrims performing Umrah and Hajj. It is a calm, low-rise city organised around the mosque. For travellers from Kenya it is most often a stop within a wider pilgrimage that also takes in Mecca.

Beyond NBO, our catalogue reaches Medina from 3 other origins: Accra (ACC), Johannesburg (JNB) and Lagos (LOS). That matters when the NBO–MED 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 Medina? Direct NBO-MED flights are operated by Saudia. Compare baggage baseline and alliance in the carrier table above.

How long is the NBO-MED flight and how often does it run? Block time is about 6.0 hours. The NBO-MED route runs roughly 2 flights per week across all carriers.

How much does a NBO-MED flight cost and when is it cheapest? Typical economy fares sit in the $550-1,200 USD band. Book 12-20 weeks ahead for Hajj season (Dhul-Hijjah); Umrah off-peak (Muharram, Safar) is 25-40% cheaper.

What is the checked baggage allowance on NBO-MED? 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. Diaspora travellers should check each carrier’s extra-baggage uplift.

What currency is used in Medina? Medina uses USD. Fares in this guide are quoted in USD; budget on-the-ground spending in USD.

Related routes and reading

2 pages below connect to NBO–MED through the data: a shared airport, a shared operating carrier, or the same audience cluster in our segmentation. Each is annotated with what it actually contains, so you can decide before clicking. Each corridor entry carries that route’s carriers, estimated weekly frequency, scheduled block time and demand score straight from our route file.

• Nairobi airport (NBO) — Jomo Kenyatta International, Kenya: 19 catalogued departure corridors and 6 arrival corridors.
• Medina airport (MED) — Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia: 0 catalogued departure corridors and 4 arrival corridors.

These links come out of the data rather than an editorial wish-list. Two pages are connected when they share an airport, a carrier, a destination country or an audience cluster, which means the list is stable as the catalogue grows and does not drift toward whatever term happens to rank. Skip what does not match your trip.

The corridor links are there to be used as alternatives, not as further reading. If the NBO–MED fare or schedule does not work, a different African gateway to Medina is often the better fix — positioning within the continent is cheap relative to the long-haul sector, and the fare gap between two origins to the same destination is regularly wider than the positioning ticket. The catch is that separately issued sectors carry no protection if the first one runs late.