The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation published recently a
study showing that Cambodia is becoming Southeast Asia fastest growing markets
with growth in passengers traffic reaching 18% for the second year in a row.
Expansion is now engaged to double capacity at both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap
airports.
Siem Reap International Airport, the air gateway serving
Angkor Wat temples continue to register the highest passengers growth rates in
Cambodia. Last year, the airport welcomed over 2.75 million passengers, up by
over 20%. The airport is likely to reach or to close to three million passengers
this year. Phnom Penh international Airport recorded 2.38 million passengers,
up by 15%. Even Sihanoukville, the country third international airport, started
to see some movement. The small Southern gateway welcomed last year over 20,000
passengers, a growth of 41% over 2012.
Cambodian airports’ good performance is due to the strong
growth in tourism but also in the number of flights and air carriers in the
Cambodian market. While national carrier Cambodia Angkor Air has finally
embarked into rapid expansion, opening in a year time seven new routesn, mostly
to China PRC. CAA network added last year from Phnom Penh the cities of
Bangkok, Hanoi and Shanghai while from Siem Reap, the carrier launched flights
to Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Wenzhou. In February, CAA launched a sixth
route to China, Siem Reap-Fuzhou served with three weekly flights. The delivery
of a new Airbus A321 could translate into new services to Korea and China.
The arrival of new Chinese carriers (Spring Airlines, Air
China or Tianjin Airlines) had a tremendous effect on traffic. China represents
now 15% of all seat capacities to and from Cambodia. This is the third largest
market after Vietnam and Thailand which represent both some 22% to 25% of all
available seats. Vietnam plays a leading and rather influential role in
Cambodia. Vietnam Airlines represents not only over 15% of total seat capacity
on international routes, it is also the
main foreign stake holder in Cambodia Angkor Air, the country’s flag carrier.
In total, 29 airlines serve now Cambodia.
Cambodian airports are now investing 100 million US$
to the expansion of both airports. Work started in January on the expansion of
terminals and aprons. More check-in and immigration counters as well as new
baggage handling systems will be installed. When expansion works will be
achieved by 2015 for Siem Reap and 2016 for Phnom Penh, the capacity of each
airport will be of 5 million passengers on an annual basis.
Visit us at Threeland Travel Cambodia to get further information about
traveling around the world and exploring Cambodia
A warm welcome from
Threelanders.
