Bangkok Airways to increase flights to Cambodia

Bangkok Airways is to increase its flights from the Thai capital to Cambodia as tourist numbers rise, particularly to the spectacular Angkor temples, officials said on Wednesday.

Vice-president for marketing, Peter Wiesner, said an additional flight between Bangkok and Phnom Penh would begin in August taking the number of daily flights between the two capitals to four.

From July the carrier would also add one flight a day between Bangkok and the north-western provincial city of Siem Reap expanding the number of Bangkok Airways flights on that route to five a day.

Siem Reap is the jumping-off point for the nearby 9th to 12th century ruins at Angkor, which have witnessed a sharp rise in tourist arrivals in recent years.

Wiesner said the number of passengers on that route had risen by 25 per cent in the first four months of 2002 over the same period last year.

"Bear in mind that last year we did not have the effects of September 11," he added, referring to the terror attacks in the US which led to a sharp downturn in global travel.

"There was a slump here, particularly the Japanese stopped coming, but this is over now," Wiesner said.