Cambodia Airlines (Phnom Penh) majority shareholder, the Royal Group of Cambodia, has rejected reports that the airline has been abandoned. Responding to claims in a CAPA Centre of Aviation report that said the joint venture with Philippine Airlines (PR, Manila Ninoy Aquino International) shareholder, San Miguel Corporation, was likely to be shelved, Royal Group’s chief financial officer, Mark Hanna, told the Cambodia Daily: “It’s definitely not abandoned. We’re going through the process of getting AOC [air operator certificate] approval.”
However, Vietnam's Vietstock disputes Hanna's claims. In its article, the financial newswire quotes Keo Sivorn, the director general of the Cambodian State Secretariat for Civil Aviation (SSCA) as stating uncategorically that neither firm involved in the Cambodia Airlines project had initiated the start-up's certification process.
“Cambodia Airlines’ AOC is not in the process because we do not know if the two partners even still want to continue or not,” Sivorn said.“It depends on them and we are still waiting.”
Cambodia Airlines was to have launched in 2012 only for that date to be postponed to March and then to October of last year. Delays were blamed on a wave of civil unrest that shook Cambodia following a disputed national election in July 2013.
