Flying into Dushanbe from USA

[mike12324]

Im currently planning a trip to the Wakhan and will be flying into Dushanbe. I'm an American and I will be leaving from Pittburgh airport. What are airlines would be best for flying into Dushanbe from the US? Also anyone who can give a ballpark price estimate for tickets would be greatly appreciated as I am still in the early stages of budgeting and saving right now.

[Christian77]

For a single airline, Turkish Airlines from DC or NYC. For good connecting flights, anything that connects to Fly Dubai or Somon Airlines from Germany. But baggage transfer may be sketchy. I don't like Aeroflot as baggage needs at least a two hour layover in Moscow, and if you are late, forget about your bags arriving with you.

Google flights, Kayak and other online tools will give you the prices...

[AreWeThereYet?]

You can check flights, prices and schedules on websites such as Kayak, Skyscanner or Google flights.

Since you'll be flying out of the US, the easiest choice would be Turkish Airlines. They fly from multiple US airports (definitely JFK, possibly O'Hare, Dulles and Miami) and they should have at least one daily flight to Dushanbe. I've flown them plenty of times and they're fairly reliable and an overall decent experience. I also think you can buy tickets with them by redeeming United air miles.

Another option is Aeroflot. I'd rate them below Turkish Airlines but on a good day you can do a very short transfer at Sheremetyevo and their operational reliability is not bad either. I've flown them into Osh and Samarkand from Europe, without a Russian transfer visa. They're partners with Delta so you should be able to redeem some Delta miles if you have them.

I think that's more or less it as far as airlines serving Tajikistan. I don't think Air Astana (my personal favourite) flies to Dushanbe and, besides, they don't fly to the US, and I wouldn't trust other airlines (Uzbekistan Airways is frankly horrible and other smaller ones might be too unreliable; China Southern possibly flies there from Ürümqi but you need a Chinese visa). My one advice is to buy an end-to-end itinerary with one airline and one booking (meaning one reservation number and one e-ticket) so if you're late and miss one flight you can still get rebooked on the next one. When flying to Central Asia my personal policy is to go HBO (Hand Baggage Only): I've seen at least one, if not more, people on my flight ending up without their checked bags (Turkish Airlines seems particularly prone to mishandling bags, at least in the old Atatürk airport days). Finally, don't book with kiwi.com. They say they guarantee your transfer but boy oh boy they don't.

[steven]

Pegasus is also bad with baggage transfers, as I have found out to my own cost.