All Nippon Airways (ANA) is expecting its business on its Tokyo-Phnom Penh route to pick up next year and break-even.

This year’s general election in the Kingdom and several disasters in Japan have contributed to the dip in travel between both countries earlier in the year, said Norimasa Yamazaki, vice president and general manager of All Nippon Airways Co Ltd in Cambodia. 

“I think 2019 is going to be an exciting year for us where we will also see improvements in performance. On the whole, 2018 was a little “negative” for us.

There was the national general elections in Cambodia and in Japan we faced two big natural disasters, flooding and typhoon, so Cambodians avoided Japan,  which resulted in a slight slowdown in business,” Yamazaki told The Post.

ANA, the largest airline in Japan in terms of fleet size, launched its services from Tokyo (Narita Airport) to Phnom Penh in September 2016 and currently operates seven flights per week. 

Forty per cent of its passengers are from Cambodia while the other 60 percent are Japanese flyers ‑ both business travellers and tourists.

In the past decade, ANA was recognised thrice by Air Transport World as “Airline of the Year” (2007, 2013 and 2018), because of its quality services.

Since 1999, ANA has been a member of Star Alliance and has joint venture partnerships with the United Airlines, Lufthansa German Airlines, Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines.

The Phnom Penh-Tokyo route has been a loss-making route for the airline since it was launched but this is expected to change next year, due to some major tourist events in Japan which are expected to attract more business and leisure travellers from Cambodia.

While at the same time, increased business and investment opportunities in Cambodia are expected to attract more business travellers from Japan to visit the Kingdom.

“While passenger loads have increased over a period of time, yield has not improved much. After operating the route at a loss, we expect to see profits next year and beyond."

“The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will help improve our loads further. We are expecting more Cambodians to visit Japan to see the Games,” he said, adding that Tokyo will also host the Rugby World Cup 2019 – a first for Asia!

ANA started its operations with two helicopters in 1952. It now boasts 257 aircraft, connecting to 90 destinations and flies over 50 million passengers annually.

“Asean is an emerging market and our strategy is to fly to all 10 countries. That is the reason we started flying to Phnom Penh in 2016,” said Yamazaki.

However, challenges related to obtaining a visa for Cambodians travelling to Japan and the documentation process that takes about a week is slowing down outbound travel to Japan.

“The process of obtaining a visa is a hassle. So we are requesting that the process is relaxed,” he added.

According to the Tourism Ministry, in 2016 about 200,000 Japanese tourists visited the Kingdom and in the first nine months of last year, the numbers touched 146,000.

The government is targeting to woo 300,000 Japanese tourists by 2020.

Bilateral trade is also on the rise between both nations. According to the Council for the Development of Cambodia, two-way trade reached $1.61 billion compared to $366 million in 2010.

And 1,500 Japanese companies have registered in Cambodia from 2010 until last year, according to Japan External Trade Organization.