Georgie2007

I am having trouble finding flights from Johannesburg to Arusha. We arrive in Johannesburg from Sydney at about 4pm and will stay overnight at the Metcourt so we can leave early the next day. We will be flying Johannesburg to Arusha on a Monday. South African airways has a daily flight which lands in DAR at about 1930 and am not sure if we can then get a late connection to Arusha. We would like to avoid a night in DAR if possible. Does anyone know how we can get from Johannesburg to Arusha in a day even if it means going via Nairobi?
Thanks in advance.

sniktawk

Arusha is not an International Airport (generally). I take it that you need to be at Arusha for an internal flight to one of the Northern or Western parks.
You need to fly from Joburg to Kilimanjaro International, and then a road transfer to Arusha between 1 and 2 hours. You should find that you can get flights on both SAA and Air Tanzania from Joburg, both of which go via DAR. The last time we did it in reverse we were on the same plane all the way through, but on the ground in DAR for about 45 minutes.

sandi

As above, Arusha is the domestic airport, so you  have to get a flight from JNB to either DAR or JRO. Believe last flight from DAR to Arusha (ARK) departs 6pm, so you'd require overnight at DAR. 

Better to get a flight into JRO.   Drive from this airport into Arusha town is 45/min-1/hr.  To ARK airport can be about 30/min south of the town, especially during rush-hour.

Believe SAA has an earlier (mid-morning, approx.4/hrs flying) flight from JNB to Nairobi/Kenya (NBO), where you can get a connecting flight on Precision Air/Air Kenya (PW/KQ) code share to JRO. There are a number of PW flights out of NBO daily. As long as you don't leave the NBO/JKIA airport you WILL NOT require a Kenya Visa or even Yellow Fever inoculation.

Patty

I don't believe there are any flights from DAR to either JRO (Kilimanjaro) or ARK (Arusha) that you'd be able to connect to with a 19:30 arrival.

Try:

KQ461 (Kenya Airways) JNB-NBO 11:50-16:50
PW726 (Precision Air) NBO-JRO 18:10-19:00

PW726 is also marketed as Kenya Airways codeshare flight KQ6726. Provided the JNB-NBO flight is on schedule, the connection time in NBO is fine. However, be aware that PW726 is the last flight to JRO on Mondays so in case of delay and misconnect, you'd be spending the night in Nairobi.

Your other option is to skip the overnight in JNB and take:

KQ463 JNB-NBO 00:40-05:50
PW724 (also marketed as KQ6724) NBO-JRO 08:00-08:50

I believe the SA JNB-NBO flight gets in too late to connect.

Georgie2007

Thanks for your replies. I will now cost it all out including an overnight stay if necessary and see which is more suitable and cost effective.

sniktawk

You can get from Joburg to Kilimanjaro in a day at a reasonable price on SAA. There is no need to go to Nairobi, just to fly back to Kilimanjaro. Precision Air has no flights directly to Arusha.The SAA timetable currently shows a daily flight to DAR leaving JNB at 10.05 and arriving at 14.35, using this you will miss the Precision Air flight to Arusha, but you will be able to fly on to Kilimanjaro on Precision Air and get there at a reasnable time for a ground transfer to Arusha. Good luck!

smiffs

Hello Georgie2007

We recently did this leg from Johannesburg to Arusha and as described above the best way is to fly into Kilimanjaro and take the 45 minute ride into Arusha with one of the local companies.

Air Tanzania do the trip to Kili with the following times:
Johannesburg deperat 13:50 with arrival at Kilimanjaro at 20:45.
The return is leave Kili at 0800 and arrive at 1310.

The flight goes via Dar and Zanzibar but you remain on the plane, but Air Kilimanjaro will if the numbers going to Kili are not many transfer you to a smaller plane (Dash 8) for the leg from Dar to Kili direct.

Air Tanzania are quite good and the flights have to be booked through a travel agency as they do not have their web site working at the moment.

When we booked a couple of months ago the price for 2 people was $1788 Australian through flight centre.

Hope this helps.

Smiffs

Patty

<i>The SAA timetable currently shows a daily flight to DAR leaving JNB at 10.05 and arriving at 14.35</i>

I believe the OP is traveling in August 2009 when SA188 changes to a 14:55 departure from JNB and 19:25 arrival at DAR.

Georgie2007

Thank you all so much for your advice. Wish I was going very soon sniktawk but Patty is correct we leave August 2009 and the flight times have changed. At least we are closer timewise to our safari in August 2009 than we are to our safari in 2007.

Smiffs thanks for your reply. It is always good to hear from someone with first hand experience. It looks like we will do the same thing. Fly with Tanzania Air from Johannesburg to Kilimanjaro. On the way back we will actually flying from Zanzibar to Johannesburg. What did you think of Tanzania Air?

Thanks everyone again for sharing your knowledge.

Cheers,

Georgie

smiffs

Tanzania Air in the whole is not a bad airline. Flights were comfortable however we found they can be a little astray in keeping to schedules, and from what we heard from others this is common.

Just be prepared at times be patient with an hour or two delay here or there, which I find amongst airlines is becoming more frequent.

Otherwise they are fine and compared to other ways of getting to Kili we found the delays we had of a slight nature.

Georgie2007

Hi Smiffs,
Thanks for your reply. I replied and the post got lost so have had to rewrite it. Sorry if it suddenly appears from the ether.
Well I guess we will be flying Tanzania Air. Hopefully we wont be plagued by the delay problems. On the fight Johannesburg to Kilimanjaro hopefully we wont have to change planes and miss a connection if delayed. On the flight back DAR to Johannesburg we arrive in J'Burg at 1310 and our international flight leaves at 1800 so even if it is delayed by a few hours we should be OK.
Cheers Georgie

sniktawk

We actually used Air Tanzania twice to go from Joburg to Tanzania, they are perfectly OK, the planes arec leased from SAA the only thing you do not get is an inflight movie.
I must admit the change in the SAA timetable is odd, I like other
s could not get onto the Air Tanzania site. Have a great trip!