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Posted Date: Tuesday, 30-Jun-2015
PHNOM PENH Cambodia Bayon Airlines, a low-cost Chinese-owned airline, will launch daily flights between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City beginning 1 July.
The new flight follows on from the launch of domestic flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap and Sihanoukville.
The management is already complaining about tough domestic market conditions. Cambodia Daily quoted the airline’s vice general manager, Nick Nayak, saying there were too many airlines serving domestic routes, begging the question why the management wanted to add to the oversupply.
The airline has hardly any marketing profile outside of Phnom Penh and lacks sales links to travel agency channels.
inside no 1Establishing a service from Phnom Penh to Ho Chi Minh City might pay off if the services go through to Siem Reap with a seamless connection.
Cambodia lacks international flight links, while having a substantial oversupply on the route to Siem Reap, the only domestic route that yields profit.
The airline is using the Chinese-owned Xian MA60 for the 50-minute flight to Ho Chi Minh City.
The BD 811 flight will depart Phnom Penh at 1120 and arrive HCMC at 1215. The return flight, BD 812, will depart HCMC at 1300 and arrive Phnom Penh at 1345. All times are local.
Bayon Airlines will join just two other Cambodia-based airlines currently offering international flights. They are: national flag-carrier Cambodia Angkor Air and Sky Angkor Airlines, a South Korean-Cambodian joint venture.
Tour operators would like to see more flights from Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok to Siem Reap to make fares more competitive.
International travellers will discover the airline’s website is a poor effort, minimalistic in content, with a home page repeating six times a single fare offer of USD15 from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap.
The home page suggests you can book online, but in fact the process is manual taking travellers back to the times when you had to visit an airline office to conclude the transaction.
Once you make a reservation on the website, you will need to telephone Bayon Airline Ticketing Call Centre within two hours (48 hours if one books tickets during non-working hours) to confirm seats.
The website allows you to make a reservation, but after completing the form, a pop-up message explains that passengers will have to contact the airline manually within 48 hours to complete the booking.
Tickets must be picked up from the sale office or at the airline office at the airport.
Payment has to be made 120 minutes before the flight. No explanation on how this is accomplished, other than handing over cash in person in exchange for a ticket. There is no facility on the website for online payments.
As for the airline’s background, a very short “About Us” explains that Cambodia Bayon Airlines is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayon Airlines Holdings established in April 2014. It claims it will have a fleet of 20 MA60 aircraft and 10 Airbus 320s within five years to build a route network covering Cambodia and connecting the country to ASEAN capital cities as well as Japan, China, and South Korea.
sourced:ttrweekly.com
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