A man checks the flight schedule board in the Phnom Penh International Airport. Heng Chivoan
A total of 26 international airlines were operating 844 flights to or from Cambodia each week as of end-May – counting those inbound and outbound separately – most of which are intra-ASEAN, according to State Secretariat of Civil Aviation (SSCA) undersecretary of state Sinn Chanserey Vutha.
Phnom Penh accounted for the majority of the flights at 634 or 75.12 per cent, followed by Siem Reap (196; 23.22%) and Sihanoukville (22; 2.61%), he said, adding that 43 airlines were operating in Cambodia in 2019 prior to the pandemic, excluding those solely running charter services.
“The civil aviation sector is improving from month to month,” Chanserey Vutha said, mentioning Bangkok, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur as notable international destinations to and from the Kingdom.
“At the same time, we anticipate that there’ll soon be additional flights between Cambodia and China,” he added.
Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) Cambodia chapter chairman Thourn Sinan welcomed the return of the international airlines, although he acknowledged that the economic crisis engendered by the Ukraine conflict has had a profound effect on travel patterns the world over.
“It is imperative for Cambodia to work toward establishing direct flights to major cities in each nation, not simply to their capitals, in order to draw in more tourists,” he opined, suggesting more routes to India.
“India is also an important target market that Cambodia must pay attention to,” he stressed.
For reference, the Kingdom welcomed 22,103 Indian visitors in the first four months of this year, which marked a 1.53 per cent increase from the 21,770 tallied over the same period of the pre-pandemic year of 2019.
Sinan also pointed out that two of the 26 airlines, Bamboo Airways and Thai Vietjet Air, recently launched for the first time in Cambodia.
Popular travel advice and booking site Tripadvisor last week placed its “Angkor Wat Sunrise Tour” on its latest lists of 10 overall experiences in Asia and the world, in the fourth and eighth spots respectively.
The Ministry of Tourism reported that Cambodia received more than 2.16 million international visitors during the first five months of the year, equivalent to nearly 75 per cent of the 2.89 million recorded in the same time of 2019.
May – the month that Cambodia hosted the Southeast Asian (SEA) Games – accounted for 0.44 million of that total, compared to 0.43 million in April, ministry statistics suggest. Meanwhile, the total for the entire year has been predicted to reach 4.5 million.
