AirAsia to the rescue

AirAsia and its sister airline Thai AirAsia have helped increase tourist arrivals to Cambodia with their services from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok respectively to Phnom Penh.



As K.B.Thuraisingham, principal advisor to Cambodia’s ministry of tourism, said, the airline is helping to connect Cambodia to the world as they bring not just Malaysians and Thais but also foreigners who use Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok as the starting point on their travels through the ASEAN region.



Such services are especially invaluable in the absence of a national carrier for Cambodia.



The daily Kuala Lumpur-Phnom Penh service, which started on November 1 last year, enjoyed healthy passenger load averaging over 80 per cent. Thai AirAsia reports similar load factor.



The LCC is working with Cambodia’s tourism ministry to promote the routes, said Jeamie Lee, AirAsia’s public relations executive.



“We are also working with travel agents to promote our routes. Most importantly we offer low fares, especially promotional ones such as the Super Deals, to stimulate the market to travel.”



Currently AirAsia is using the B737-300 aircraft with 148 seats on services to Phomn Penh.



“As the Airbus A320, which has a capacity of 180 seats, enters into the service we will have more capacity to work with. By then an increase of flight frequency from both Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok to Phnom Penh would be considered based on market demands and also on aircraft availability,” said Lee.