Private Jet Timphou to Anchorage

Paro International Airport, the only airport serving Bhutan and famously one of the most challenging in the world to fly into given the surrounding Himalayan peaks, is the departure point for the 4,762-nautical-mile, nine-hour flight to Anchorage, a route restricted to a small number of specially certified pilots given Paro’s demanding approach and departure procedures. A heavy jet with genuine long-range capability is required for the crossing itself; the Gulfstream G450 or a comparable aircraft offers the fuel reserves and cabin comfort the distance demands. Cruising near 45,000 feet for extended portions of the route allows the aircraft to take advantage of favourable winds along the northern great-circle track across Central Asia, Siberia and the Bering Sea before descent into Cook Inlet. Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness philosophy and its carefully limited approach to tourism give Thimphu, the capital reached by road from Paro, a character unlike almost anywhere else in Asia, one that shares an unlikely kinship with Alaska’s own emphasis on preserving wilderness and traditional ways of life. Anchorage, framed by the Chugach Mountains and Cook Inlet, offers glaciers and salmon runs in place of Bhutan’s forested Himalayan valleys and Buddhist monasteries. This route serves an extremely narrow but genuine market of Bhutanese officials, high-net-worth visitors and specialist tour operators, for whom the demanding departure from Paro is simply the first of two remarkable flying experiences bookending a journey between two of the world’s most carefully protected natural environments. Visitors typically spend at least a night in Thimphu itself, a short drive from Paro along the Paro Chhu river valley, before the long return leg west and then north toward Alaska begins in earnest.