Islamabad - Post Report Question and Answers
What is your home city/country? How long is the trip to post from there, with what connections? How easy/difficult is it to travel to this city/country?
I am Greek and the usual way to travel to my home country was via Gulf. In general this is the way to move around from Pakistan to most parts of the world (Sri Lanka, etc). - Oct 2023
Washington, DC. From the east coast of the United States you’ll probably transit through the Gulf; our current contract fare is one of those abysmal JetBlue-Emirates codeshares. It takes three calendar days to arrive (evening flight off the east coast, ~20 hours of travel, and middle-of-the-night arrival in Islamabad) but you can get back to the United States in a single day. Not the easiest. - Jun 2022
Virginia (Dulles). One needs to take two flights, Islamabad-UAE- IAD, expect it to take about 20 hours to fly; you can make it home same day if flying from Islamabad, but it will require 3 calendar days to travel from Dulles to Islamabad due to flight times. - Feb 2019
USA. It's a very long trip. I've found it best to fly through Doha and spend a night at the airport hotel to rest a bit on the way. - Jan 2017
Travel back to the east coast of the US can take up to 30 hours, with stopovers in the Gulf or Turkey. Islamabad is not a particularly well-connected capitol and US Embassy employees are not allowed to transit other Pakistani cities to leave, which is too bad as Lahore and Karachi have better flights. - Sep 2016
Brazil. Flying there from Islamabad took about 20-25 hours, sometimes longer depending on connections. Major regional hubs are Dubai (Emirates), Doha (Qatar Airways), and Istanbul (Turkish) - all excellent airports. - Sep 2015
Pacific Northwest. Travel takes 30 hours, with connections in LA and Seattle. Etihad and Emirates have Dubai/Abu Dhabi to LAX direct flights. 16.5 hours. - Aug 2015
Texas - Aug 2015
Washington, DC. It was a 25 hour journey with a layover in Doha. - Apr 2014
For the first two years, we flew via Qatar to the U.S. on Qatar Airways. That was close to a 24-hour trip in total. In our last year, we flew via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines. Travel time was about the same. We also flew to the U.S. via Dubai (Emirates) and Abu Dhabi (Etihad). - Feb 2014
Tucson, Arizona; about 30 hours with connections in Doha, Dubai, or Kuwait, and then again in Washington, New York, or Houston. AZ to Pakistan takes three calendar days! - Dec 2013
Tucson, about 30 hours with connections in Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, and then again in Washington, New York, or Houston. - Mar 2012
Home base is US. The trip is long and tedious and expensive. Connections are through Bangkok (a long detour because then you backtrack across Europe) or through the Gulf (Dubai, Abu Dhabi). - Aug 2011
Washington, DC. Trip takes about 15 hours. Best flight options are Washington-Doha-Islamabad on Qatar. You can also take Etihad and travel Washington-Abu Dhabi-Islamabad. You can also take Pakistani International Air (PIA) from London to Islamabad. It is terrible. Long haul PIA aircraft have terrible services, bad food, no entertainment and a strange odor. Avoid at all costs. - May 2011
DC is the home base. The trip is about 24 hours. DC to Doha (15 hours), Doha to Islamabad (4 hours) plus a layover. - Jan 2010
