After multiple announcements and postponements, Cambodia Angkor Air has opened reservations of its flights to Delhi from Phnom Penh effective June 16, 2024. Aeroroutes reported this yesterday. The airline will deploy the A320 on this routes at below timings
K6760 PNH1645 – 1950DEL
K6761 DEL2050 – 0250(+1)PNH
Flights will operate four times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
The timings align well with the other Southeast Asian carriers except that these are too early for arrival in Phnom Penh and reminds me of IndiGo’s timings to Vietnam and Central Asia.
Cambodia and Phnom Penh
The Kingdom of Cambodia is part of ASEAN and successive Indian governments have worked towards establishing more connections between Cambodia and India as part of the look east initiative. India and Cambodia have had ancestral ties with the spread of Hinduism and later Buddhism. The country got independence in 1953 post World War II but had its own share of challenges with the Khmer Rouge and subsequent genocide.
While Phnom Penh is the capital and the largest city, Siem Reap is the tourist hub, home to Angkor Wat – a UNESCO world heritage site. The country has seen investments from the Chinese, which include ports, airports amongst other things. Apart from Angkor Wat, the Mekong river system, Tonle Sap – the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia are amongst the places visited by foreigners.
Phnom Penh International airport is the second largest airport in Cambodia and has a single runway. The airport handled close to 40 lakh passengers in 2023.
India – Cambodia relations
India and Cambodia formalised diplomatic relations in the 1980s and both have embassies in each other’s capital. The people to people connect existed in ancient times with Angkor Wat being a hindu temple dedicated to lord Vishnu. India is one of the countries engaged in preserving the Angkor Wat temple complex.
The trade between the two countries is minimal with Indian exports to Cambodia being 0.05% of total exports and imports being 0.02% of total imports. India has a trade surplus with Cambodia. Top three things which India exports to Cambodia are Pharmaceutical products, Meat and Edible Meat, Animal Fodder. Top three things which India imports from Cambodia are Electrical machinery, Footwear, Apparel and clothing.
Boost in the arm for Delhi
At the end of February, Delhi was connected to 67 international destinations. This could be the 68th for the biggest airport of India. With a direct flight to Indonesia since December 01, 2023 and services to Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, the only service lacking is that to Manila, Philippines. The market size is too small to have flights to Brunei or Laos for the time being. Philippines airlines had announced the launch of this route in 2019 and pulled out just days before the launch of this route to Delhi from Manila. Will Phillipine Airlines return or will it be an Indian carrier which will attempt this route?
Network Thoughts
Expanding beyond the ASEAN and China region is a good move by Cambodia Angkor Air. Over the last decade, barring COVID, Indians have been expanding their travel horizons and Cambodia has made its mark on the tourist map. The airline has two ATRs, two A320s and one A321. It is unclear how the airline plans to sell Business class on the A320, since all online resources suggest that only the A321 has the business class.
Cambodia has seen a spate of airlines with similar sounding names like Cambodia Angkor Air, Sky Angkor Airlines, Cambodia Airways, Lanmei Airways and will see AirAsia Bhd’s latest franchise as AirAsia Cambodia start next month. Considering AirAsia groups dominance in India, one would widely expect that AirAsia Cambodia will start flights to India when it gets approval to fly internationally from Cambodia. Current schedule for the airline is all domestic. Interestingly, all airlines use the A320 family aircraft.
The flight will be a boon for group travelers and another thorn for the Malaysian carriers which thrive on transfer traffic to ASEAN.
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