1 reviews
Hello Dear Reader,
This is the report of flight LQ909 from Phnom Penh International Airport (IATA: PNH, ICAO: VDPP) to Sihanouk International Airport (IATA: KOS, ICAO: VDSV) with Lanmei Airlines (IATA: LQ, ICAO: MRK), in Economy class on Mar/3rd 2020.
It is a Low cost airline, founded in 2016 and based at Phnom Penh Airport. Currently has 6 airplanes: 1 A319 (with 14y old from BMI and BA), 3 A320 (the oldest with 14y old from Air Arabia, other with 11,3 previously operated by Jetstar and VivaAeroBus and the youngest with 10y an ex-Saudia Arabia Airlines) and 2 A321 (one with 17,6y old ex-Spirit and Monarch and the other with 19,9y old and previously operated by Royal Jordanian and Monarch).
The average fleet age is 13,2, operating routes to 25 destinations in 6.
Check my video with the full flight report:
Phnom Penh Airport Terminal has a common check-in and then it is split into Domestic and International Gates. It is located 10km west of the countries capital and has 1 runway. The Cambodian Airports are managed by the French company Vinci, and PHN had 5 millions passengers last year (an increase of 11,3% compared with 2018) and 56.018 movements (also an increase of 7,3%).
For this flight was no possible to check-in online because, according with the airline, the system was under maintenance. They had 3 check-in desks for this flight.
After check-in, I proceeded to the X-Ray screening.
This airport had no lounge in the domestic terminal, which was composed by one duty free store and one restaurant.
The boarding gate for this flight was the 2A.
This flight had started in Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (IATA: CAN, ICAO: ZGGG), China and landed around 18h50 at Phnom Penh. Some passengers disembarked but the big majority remained onboard to continue their flight to Sihanoukville.
The boarding started at 19h15 and finished 10 minutes later because there weren’t many passengers for this short flight.
This flight was operated by an Airbus A321, Registration XU-961, with 17,6 years old. It was operated previously by Sprint Airlines from USA between 2004 and 2008 and then by Monarch from UK until 2017.
The cabin had 36 rows of economy class seats and as curiosity, the emergency signs were in English and Spanish.
Because this flight had started in China, a due to the Corona virus outbreak, the cabin crew were wearing masks, googles and gloves.
I was seat at 4F. The aircraft pushed-back 19h40 and taxied to the runway 23.
The actual departure time was at 19h45, 5 before scheduled departure (at 19h50)
After take-off, the airplane flew south towards Sihanoukville.
No service was made because the flight was very short. The fasten seatbelts’ sight was off just for a couple of minutes.
The aircraft landed on Runway 21 at Sihanouk International Airport at 20h07, 23 minutes before scheduled arrived (at 20h30) and a flight time of 22 minutes, one of my shortest flight.
The small Sihanouk International Airport has 1 main terminal and 1 runway.
Last year, they had a 158% increase in the passengers for 1,7 millions and 17.824 passengers.
When we arrive at our stand, the crew asked for the passengers coming from China to leave the airplane first and only then the passengers from Phnom Penh.
The disembark was made by stairs and then I took the bus to the main terminal. Outside the terminal the officer were sorting out the passengers for international arrivals and passport control on the right and for domestic arrivals on the left and direct access to the luggage claim area.
After it I went to luggage carousel and I pick it up at 20h30
Thank you very much for browsing through my flight report,
Fábio Conceição
(Data source: Airfleets.net, Wikipedia.org, Airports and Airline’s Website)
Was very nice to fly with this airline, not exactly because of the service but is a almost unknown airline in Europe. As a low cost and for the flight time (20 minutes) I was not expecting any service. I think is a pity the airport of the Cambodian airport has no lounge for the domestic terminal, nevertheless the terminal looked very new and this was the last flight of the day and the staff kept the store and the restaurant opened for us. The Sinahok airport was much small and was completely crowded and the flight was not full. They need a expansion plan very soon because the traffic is growing very fast, mostly due to the Chinese construction works for the next big Resort area they are projecting and subsequently the tourists.
5 Comments
Thank you for sharing! It's interesting to note how they only split the passengers only when on ground. And this is done by the immigration officer manually "sorting" the arriving pax. I was thinking it will be stricter, like in Australia, if an international flight contains a shorter domestic segment, then the domestic passengers will also need to depart and arrive from the international terminals. They just get to skip the immigration queues / counters, but other than that go through all the formalities akin to that on international flights.
Yeah is funny how they do it. Actually the officers are not checking the passports but just directing the passengers ... and I am sure there were passengers from China going to the domestic arrivals. This practice is quite common in Asia, at least in Thailand happens the same and they don’t effectively check your passport. They give you a sticker “CIQ”. If you loose it or if you intentionally go to the domestic arrivals side nobody checks your passport and you’ll enter illegally in the country. Is it very good when you’ve a short connection time but at the same time is a big lack in security.
Funny part is that if you do so, you pretty much '**** up yourself with a massive fine if you decide to leave the country in Thailand as the officer will see no stamp and will fine you as you illegally entered the country. Anyway thanks for sharing this trip with a very very short flight!
Definitely is mostly a tourist route, because most of the locals and budget travelers prefer to go by bus, which is only 5h and way much cheaper. I don´t remember exactly but the cheapest ticket by airplane was 50€. Sihanoukville is having a increase of Chinese investment and is attracting many tourists from China. As budget airline is usual they refuse to serve a cup of water, like they do in Europe.
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