Kasese, Mweya, Kihihi and the charter layer

Flying to Queen Elizabeth National Park: airstrips, schedules and the honest comparison

Name: Queen Elizabeth National Park
Address: Uganda

There is a daily scheduled flight to Queen Elizabeth, and it does not land in the park. Aerolink flies to Kasese airstrip, and from there you still have 1.5 to 2 hours of road ahead of you to Mweya. That single fact changes the arithmetic of flying here, and it is the one most pages leave out.

If you only want the answer

Aerolink Uganda flies Entebbe to Kasese airstrip daily, with up to four rotations a day for most of the year and only one in March, April, May and November. Kasese sits outside the park, so allow another 1.5 to 2 hours by road to Mweya. If Ishasha and the tree-climbing lions are the reason you are coming, fly to Kihihi instead, which is about 30 to 45 minutes from the sector. Mweya has its own airstrip and it is charter only. Nobody publishes a fare for any of this, Aerolink included, so ask its reservations desk rather than trusting a figure on an operator site. Door to door, flying saves roughly half a day each way against the 7 to 8 hours UWA quotes for the drive from Kampala.

The scheduled flight lands outside the park

Aerolink Uganda's own 2026 timetable, valid January to December and checked on 18 September 2026, lists the destination as QENP, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Kasese airstrip. Kasese serves Kibale Forest National Park at the same time. Mweya and Ishasha do not appear in the scheduled timetable at all.

The service is daily, with the stated condition that flights to and from Kasese operate with a minimum of 2 passengers. That is a softer threshold than the four passengers Aerolink requires per airstrip on the Murchison rotation, and it makes a couple travelling alone a workable booking here.

Read the times as a guide rather than a promise. Aerolink prints two lines under its own table: the arrival and departure times depict the first stop, and timings may vary depending on aircraft routing. That is why the return A8 112 shows 2 hours 50 minutes on paper against 1 hour 15 outbound. The aircraft is calling at other strips on the way. Treat the flight as somewhere between 1 hour 10 and 2 hours 30, and confirm the routing for your date with Aerolink Operations.

Flight	From	To	Depart	Arrive	On paper
A8 111	Entebbe	Kasese	07:00	08:15	1 h 15
A8 117	Entebbe	Kasese	10:30	11:45	1 h 15
A8 121	Entebbe	Kasese	13:00	15:30	2 h 30, may route via Murchison Falls
A8 131	Entebbe	Kasese	13:00	14:10	1 h 10
A8 112	Kasese	Entebbe	08:35	11:25	2 h 50
A8 118	Kasese	Entebbe	12:05	14:25	2 h 20
A8 132	Kasese	Entebbe	14:30	16:15	1 h 45
A8 122	Kasese	Entebbe	15:50	17:15	1 h 25

The four months that matter: A8 117/118, A8 121/122 and A8 131/132 fly all year except in March, April, May and November. In those four months only A8 111/112 remains, so one flight in and one out per day. Those are also the months when the murram is at its worst, which makes them the hardest four of the year to move around in on this side of Uganda.

If you are coming for Ishasha, fly to Kihihi

Kihihi is Aerolink's airstrip for the northern side of Bwindi at Buhoma, and in practice it is the best way to reach the Ishasha sector by air. It is about 15 km from Ishasha, roughly 25 minutes free-flow and realistically 30 to 45 minutes. Ishasha Wilderness Camp, which sends all of its fly-in guests this way, puts the transfer at about 45 minutes on its own site. That is the only published transfer time we found for this area, and it is more trustworthy than a routing model, which returned 89 minutes for the same run because it penalises park roads heavily.

Kihihi also has more flights than Kasese. A8 111/112, A8 117/118, A8 121/122 and A8 131/132 all serve it, the earliest leaving Entebbe at 07:00 and reaching Kihihi at 08:15.

Compare that with arriving at Kasese if Ishasha is your target. From Kasese you drive to Mweya, and then the length of the park southwards, which is two and a half to three hours of road before you see a fig tree. Kihihi has an IATA code, KHX, and no ICAO code. The code HUKH circulates online and does not exist.

Mweya and Ishasha: what the strips really are

Mweya has an airstrip inside the park on the peninsula, about 1 km from Mweya Safari Lodge, which is around five minutes. That is the whole point of it, since landing at Mweya saves the 70 minute drive up from Kasese. UWA's own general management plan describes two airstrips in the protected area, at Mweya and in the Ishasha sector, both licensed by the Civil Aviation Authority.
Mweya does not appear in Aerolink's 2026 scheduled timetable, so in practice it is charter only. UWA's park page still advertises flying to Kasese, Mweya or Kihihi by scheduled or chartered aircraft from Entebbe International Airport or Kajjansi Airfield, which is more than you can actually book on a scheduled service.
Mweya's runway data is contradictory across sources: 1,200 or 1,255 metres, grass or dirt, elevation between 912 and 980 metres. The strip is not on the Civil Aviation Authority's list of managed fields and was outside CAA supervision as of January 2010. UWA's management plan also considered moving the Mweya strip to Katunguru. Whether that has happened is unconfirmed.
There is a strip in the Ishasha sector, listed as Ishasha River Camp Airport, runway 05/23, 1,006 metres, gravel, at 00 36 50 south and 29 39 55 east. It carries no IATA and no ICAO code, OpenStreetMap flags it as possibly uncertified, OurAirports does not list it, and the published figures rest on satellite imagery, mapping data and a map from 1961. No aviation authority appears anywhere in that chain.
The strongest evidence about the Ishasha strip is commercial. Ishasha Wilderness Camp lies 9.5 km from it in a straight line and still routes its fly-in guests through Kihihi, 45 minutes away, and does not mention the strip on its own site. Plan on Kihihi.
One data trap to know about. Three fields sit close together and are routinely confused: Kihihi with IATA code KHX in Uganda, Ishasha River Camp with no codes in Uganda, and Ishasha Airport with ICAO code FZNI, which is in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo, 15 km over the border. OpenStreetMap wrongly attaches FZNI to the Ugandan strip. Do not trust an ICAO code for either of these.
Kasenyi Airport with ICAO code HULA exists on paper in the Kasenyi sector, at 940 metres elevation and unsurfaced, owned by the park. A map query over the area found no runway feature at all and OurAirports does not list it. Treat it as unconfirmed and probably out of use.
There is no airstrip at Katunguru, at Kyambura or at Kilembe. All three are place names. Kilembe sits 10.5 km west of Kasese airfield and has never had a field of its own.

Kasese airfield itself

Kasese airfield is a grass strip of 1,750 by 30 metres at an elevation of 959 metres, according to the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority page consulted on 18 September 2026. It sits 4 km from Kasese town, and from the town it is roughly 55 km to Mweya, about 70 minutes. A routing calculation on the same date gives Mweya to the airstrip as about 59 km at 1.3 hours free-flow, so plan on 1.5 to 2 hours.

The runway length is disputed. The Civil Aviation Authority gives 1,750 metres, Wikipedia 1,600 metres, and OurAirports and OpenStreetMap 1,570 metres. The official figure is the authority's; the spread is 1,570 to 1,750 metres and averaging it would serve nobody.

The field has no fire service, no air navigation service and no fuel, according to the same authority page. It is a grass runway with minimal infrastructure. The claim that Kasese is being upgraded to an airport is not true as of September 2026. It has been announced repeatedly since 2008 and never carried out; the most recent promise came from President Museveni at a campaign rally on 7 December 2025, with no specifications, no timeline and no funding attached. It is still grass.

Fares, baggage and what UWA charges the aircraft

No fare is published. Aerolink does not post a price for Entebbe to Kasese on its destination page, in its timetable or on its travel information page. The only prices it does publish are these: children aged 2 to 11 pay 70 per cent of the adult fare, the Kisoro surcharge is 70 dollars per person, a Jinja connection to or from Kisoro, Kihihi, Kasese or Murchison Falls carries a surcharge of 1,000 dollars, and excess baggage is 5 dollars a kilo. Any figure you find on an operator site is a resale price with a margin on it. Ask Aerolink reservations on +256 31 733 3000 or at info@aerolinkuganda.com.

Baggage is the rule that catches people out. The limit is 15 kg in soft bags and it includes your hand luggage. Personal items may not exceed 5 kg together and they count inside that 15 kg. Checked bags should be about 60 cm high by 45 long by 33 wide, and hand luggage 30 by 53 by 23. Excess runs at 5 dollars a kilo and is carried at the airline's discretion within the aircraft's safety limit. You can buy 75 kg of guaranteed freight space in advance, priced at the child fare plus taxes, and unused space is not refunded. Folding wheelchairs, sticks, walkers, crutches and CPAP machines travel free for passengers with a disability and do not count towards the 15 kg. Hard suitcases do not fit the hold on these aircraft.

Check in 60 minutes before departure at Entebbe International Airport and 30 minutes at any bush airstrip. Onward connections from Kasese to Kihihi and Kisoro are available on request at seat rate, and from Murchison Falls to Kasese and Kihihi with a minimum of four passengers per airstrip. Aerolink guarantees connections only inside its own network.

UWA charges the aircraft as well as the passengers, per landing: 10 dollars for gliders and microlights, 20 dollars up to a 3 seater, 30 for a 4 to 6 seater, 40 for a 7 to 14 seater, 50 for 15 to 20, 60 for 21 seats and above, and 125 dollars for a helicopter. Parking is UGX 10,000 a day. One oddity in that table: its columns are headed foreign resident and East African Community, with no foreign non-resident column, unlike every other table in the booklet. Pilots passing through pay no park entry if they stay under two hours. Passengers pay park entry exactly as they would arriving by road.

The honest comparison: drive or fly

Door to door, flying works out at roughly 4 to 5.5 hours: 60 minutes of check-in at Entebbe, then 1 hour 15 to 2 hours 30 in the air depending on routing, then 1.5 to 2 hours of road from Kasese to Mweya. Driving from Entebbe takes 8 to 9 hours, and UWA puts the drive from Kampala at 7 to 8. So a flight buys you about half a day each way, which is a full day on a return.

No honest page can give you a fixed door to door time. Aerolink states in its own timetable that published times refer to the first stop and that routing varies with the day's load. That is a property of the product rather than a gap in the research, and the only fix is to confirm your specific date with Aerolink Operations.

The case for driving is not only money. A long circuit through western Uganda usually takes in Lake Mburo on the southern route or Kibale on the northern one, and flying removes both of those stops. There is also the vehicle question at the far end: arriving by air without a vehicle arranged leaves you buying game drives locally, since the park's game tracks need wheels regardless of how you got there.

The strongest case for flying is the Bwindi combination. Fly into Kihihi for gorillas at Buhoma and the Ishasha sector in the same trip, and you skip the longest and roughest driving in the whole itinerary.

Short trip of four or five days: fly, and take the half day back at each end.
Ishasha and the tree-climbing lions are the reason for the trip: fly to Kihihi rather than Kasese.
Gorillas at Buhoma plus Queen Elizabeth: fly, this is the combination that flying serves best.
A long western circuit taking in Lake Mburo or Kibale: drive, since flying removes the stops that justify the route.
Travelling in March, April, May or November: check the schedule first, because only one rotation a day remains.
Self-driving with your own vehicle or camping gear: drive, since you need the vehicle once you land anyway.
Staying at Mweya and wanting to land there: charter, since no scheduled service uses the Mweya strip.

Something this page does not answer?

Schedules here are thin and change by season. If the dates you want are not covered, ask.

Ask us. We answer questions about the park itself, and we can usually tell you which camps work on one route and who to write to. If what you want is a trip someone else arranges, we will say so and hand you to an operator we know, and we earn a commission if that becomes a booking.

Nothing on this site sits behind the form. Every figure we have is already on the page.

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