The sector is held by EgyptAir, Euroairlines, Nesma Airlines, Nile Air and Iberia Express.
Airport pair · hand carry reference
CAI Cairo to MAD Madrid
Cairo International, Egypt, to Adolfo Suarez Barajas, Spain. Computed from the scheduled network held on 2026-09-07.
- Nonstop
- About twice a day
- Great circle
- 3,350 km
- Block, estimated
- 4h 32m
- Door to door
- 11h 17m
What CAI to MAD looks like
The CAI to MAD sector, the carriers on it and the flying time, before anything is promised to anybody.
Cairo CAI to Madrid MAD is a medium haul sector of 3,350 km by great circle, flown nonstop about twice a day.
At the cruise speed this site models for 3,350 km, 880 km an hour, and thirty minutes of taxi at the two ends, the flight blocks at about 4h 32m.
Cairo CAI is a large airport in the network held here, 105 scheduled destinations and 311.7 departures a day. Madrid MAD has 252 destinations and 720.9 departures a day.
Madrid is one hour behind of Cairo all year.
The pair sits between Africa and Europe, a corridor where the site already publishes 8 written lanes that go into customs and ground detail this page does not.
Who flies the sector, and how often
Average daily frequencies on CAI to MAD from the scheduled route statistics, both directions, with the operating carriers named.
| Direction | Flights a day | Flights a week | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| CAI to MAD | 2.14 | 15 | EgyptAir, Euroairlines, Nesma Airlines, Nile Air |
| MAD to CAI | 1.57 | 11 | EgyptAir, Iberia Express |
5 carriers are recorded on the sector, so a missed departure is normally a rebooking rather than a lost day.
The two directions are not level: CAI to MAD runs about twice a day, the return runs about once a day, and a round trip has to be planned around the thinner of the two.
Between them the two directions put about 26 departures a week on CAI to MAD, which is the number that decides whether a seat can be found today or on Thursday.
The clock from collection to signature
The same ground timings the route calculator starts from, applied to the 4h 32m block time on CAI to MAD. Change any of them in the tool further down and the total moves with them.
| Stage | Allowed | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|
| Collection and the run to CAI | 90 min | 1h 30m |
| At CAI before departure | 180 min | 4h 30m |
| CAI to MAD in the air, estimated | 272 min | 9h 02m |
| Formalities at MAD | 90 min | 10h 32m |
| Delivery run in Madrid | 45 min | 11h 17m |
| Door to door | 677 min | 11h 17m |
On the desk standard ground timings, ninety minutes to collect and reach the airport, three hours at the airport before departure, ninety minutes of arrival formalities and a forty five minute delivery run, the door to door figure for CAI to MAD is 11h 17m.
A courier who leaves Cairo at 09:00 local is on the ground in Madrid at about 12:32 local and at the door by 14:47 the same day.
Working backwards from a six in the evening handover in Madrid, the last useful departure from Cairo is around 12:13 local.
When the nonstop does not work
Every airport that joins the two ends, ranked by when they land, among the ones whose weaker leg is dependable enough to plan on. Connection time is allowed for the size of the hub. 57 of them join CAI to MAD.
| Connecting at | CAI to hub, flights a day | Hub to MAD, flights a day | Track, km | Estimated, gate to gate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tunis TUN | 1.71 | 1.29 | 3,359 | 6h 18m |
| Algiers ALG | 3.43 | 0.71 | 3,431 | 6h 31m |
| Athens ATH | 6.29 | 9.29 | 3,484 | 6h 42m |
| Barcelona BCN | 1.86 | 22.14 | 3,389 | 6h 56m |
| Rome FCO | 4.71 | 19.57 | 3,481 | 6h 57m |
| Bergamo BGY | 2.14 | 2 | 3,777 | 7h 04m |
One nonstop a day means one chance a day, so the connections below are what a consignment that arrives at CAI in the afternoon actually flies on.
57 airports connect the two ends on the scheduled network held here. The quickest of the dependable ones is Tunis TUN, where the weaker of the two legs still runs about once a day.
Through TUN the routing covers 3,359 km against the 3,350 km nonstop track and takes about 6h 18m in the air and on the ground at the hub, allowing 60 minutes to connect at an airport of that size.
That is only 1h 46m more than the nonstop, which is close enough that a connection is worth taking when the nonstop is full or badly timed.
Behind it, Algiers ALG at 6h 31m and Athens ATH at 6h 42m hold the same connection, so a booking has three hubs to try before it has to wait for the nonstop.
Restricted hours at either end
Widely documented operating restrictions, checked 2026-09-07. Exemptions and seasonal variations exist, so confirm with the carrier before relying on any of them.
Madrid MAD, night operations: Operates around the clock. Night departures to the Americas are routine.
Industry within reach of the two ends
Public manufacturing and research sites whose logistics run through CAI or MAD. Listed as industrial geography, not as customers of anyone.
- Airbus, Getafe and IllescasRear fuselage, tail sections and composite structures. The Spanish sites sit on the same takt as the French and German ones. Logistics through Madrid MAD.
Plan Cairo to Madrid yourself
The same tool the dispatchers use, open to anybody and free. It is loaded with this pair already. Change either end, add a stopover or a preferred airline, and it works out the connection, the transit and the door to door clock, with the real departures underneath. Put it on your own site if it is useful to you.
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Restrictions
Where this came from, and where to look next
- Carriers and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics, retrieved 2026-09-07. Average daily flights, not a timetable.
- Distances: great circle from published coordinates. They read short against a flown track, which is why the block time above applies a factor to them.
- Block and connection times: the same model the route calculator lower down this page runs, at the same rounding.
- Restrictions: the airport notes file, checked 2026-09-07.
- Industrial sites: public company information. Nothing here says or implies that any company named is a customer of any courier operator.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a placement desk in Dubai. An assignment is carried out by a vetted partner operator, with the desk as the single point of contact from the quote to the signature. This page exists because our own dispatchers need the answer for CAI to MAD in the twenty minutes before a promise is made, and a reference only one operator can read is not a reference. Free to read, quote and cite. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
If you need something moved rather than looked up, the desk prices a hand carry in fifteen minutes.
- The CAI airport entry
- The MAD airport entry
- Hand carry into Egypt
- Hand carry into Spain
- The written lane, Cairo to Athens
- The written lane, Cairo to Sharjah
- The written lane, Sharjah to Cairo
- The route calculator
More pairs through CAI and MAD: Jeddah to Cairo, Cairo to Dubai, Cairo to Riyadh, Cairo to Abu Dhabi, Frankfurt to Cairo, Cairo to Milan, Cairo to Doha, Istanbul to Cairo.