Phnom Penh Post
By Mak Lawrence Li and May Kunmakara
Chinese flag carrier Air China is expected to launch the first non-stop
flights from Beijing to Cambodia as early as November this year,
officials said yesterday.
The stated-owned, Beijing-based airline
has applied to the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) to fly
to Siem Reap in November and Phnom Penh in February, according to a
release on Monday posted on the CAAC’s website.
Director of the
Air Transport Department of Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Civil
Aviation, Vann Chanty, said that officials from both Cambodia and China
had a meeting in Beijing in May to discuss establishing the new routes.
“They
informed us that Air China will start the direct flights from Beijing
to Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. But, so far, we have not received any
official application to us yet,” he said.
Airlines establishing new routes between two countries need approval from the aviation authorities on both sides.
Cambodian
passengers intent on going to Beijing, a city of about 20 million,
normally have a stopover in a regional city or Chinese metropolis like
Shanghai.
China Southern Airlines operates 10 flights per week
from Phnom Penh to the mainland province of Guangzhou. Shanghai-based
China Eastern Airlines serves flights from Shanghai to Phnom Penh and to
Siem Reap.
Prices hover in the $600 range. But normally, Chanty said, direct flights mean cheaper flights.
“We’re
welcome to have direct flights from Beijing to our country because it
can attract more investors and tourists from China to the country –
especially, it is easily for officials of both countries to exchange
visits,” he said.
Based on regulations, he said the application
process for a Cambodian Air Operator Certificate (a licence to fly and
land here) takes at least three months.
According to a CAAC
spokesperson who declined to be named because he was not authorised to
speak to the media, two of Air China’s Boeing B737-800s were in the
line-up to take off once a day to both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap.
About
334,000 Chinese tourists visited Cambodia last year, a 35 per cent leap
from 2011, and tourism officials are intent on luring even more.
Cambodia hopes to nearly double its Chinese visitors by the end of 2015, and reach 1.8 million by 2018.
Air
China’s plan comes amid a flurry of activity in recent weeks aimed at
better connecting tourists and officials in both countries.
A new
exemption that took effect on June 1 allows Cambodian diplomats and
high-ranking government officials to travel to Hong Kong without a visa
and stay for 14 days, in an effort to boost ties with the commercial
Chinese city.
Private Chinese carrier Juneyao Airlines said
earlier this month that it was planning to launch direct flights from
Shanghai to Cambodia over the summer, although the routes have yet to
materialise.
Perhaps the most surprising idea of them all came
from Minister of Tourism Kong Thon’s announcement on June 19 that talks
were under way to create a ministry-approved “Chinatown” in Phnom Penh
as a way of attracting spending from the world’s second-biggest economy.
“We need to do advertisements in Chinese language, websites in Chinese language,” he said, explaining the idea.
Cambodia
attracted $9.17 billion investment from China in the last 18 years,
making China the largest investor in the country, according to the data
from Council for the Development of Cambodia.
Ho Vandy, co-chair
of the government-private sector working group, said most of the
tourists will come from China to Cambodia, not the other way around.
Chinese
tourists “bring in a lot of money to the people and the country” he
said, adding that Cambodians visiting Beijing will likely make the trip
for the express purpose of taking in the Great Wall, sections of which
run near the city.
1 comment:
AWESOME PLAN, I HAPPY TO HEAR
direct fly, china to cambodia
i'm proud to be born as khmer
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