Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Whatever happened to the K.R built Kompong Chhnang runway? Over the years there were several plans to turn it into a regional cargo hub which apparently had attracted some investors. In 2003 there was a UK guy living in Kompong Chhnang who was getting paid to be a caretaker or something. The huge runway was quite amazing and fun to ride motorcycles on. Was anything ever developed there?
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Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Vinci just got the deal to operate the new airport, and extended the concession deal on Sihanoukville airport. Techo International Airport has nothing to do with Chinese.
Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Didn't know. Good for themrogerrabbit wrote: ↑Thu Apr 18, 2024 1:11 pmVinci just got the deal to operate the new airport, and extended the concession deal on Sihanoukville airport. Techo International Airport has nothing to do with Chinese.
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Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Thank you for the link, although I could not find the numbers - I'm sure they are buried in there somewhere.rogerrabbit wrote: ↑Wed Apr 17, 2024 9:02 pm
Vinci website has all the numbers. Exact number for 2019 was 6,029,000. This can be found for example from this report: https://www.vinci-airports.com/sites/de ... ogb_ok.pdf
Wikipedia seem to have same what Vinci reports on their website.
The airport was running at it's maximum capacity back in 2019. Both passenger and runway infrastructure caused struggle at peak hours.
And most importantly current airport has no space to grow anymore. There's no space for additional taxiways/runways or terminal building, and especially cargo facilities are from early 2000s and are way too small.
The airport doesn't have enough commercial space either. And that is where the airports make money now days. For example there's only space for one proper lounge and that was pretty packed back in 2019 at times.
There are big airports in world that have only one runway, but in those airport planes don't need to taxi on runway and do u-turns to take-off which of course has huge impact on capacity how many flights per hour the airport can handle.
The buildings could have been extended considerably so I do not agree that was a restraint. As for taxiways, I doubt this would have been unachievable judging by the appearance of the site and in any case there is considerable aircraft movement capacity as it is. How often have you had to stack flying into PNH?
I can see that the way that passenger arrivals were growing in the lead up to end of 2019 that there was a genuine case to be made for a new airport. But Covid changed all those assumptions, and the green agenda has also got stronger in the meantime. The Chinese investors who decided to pull out in 2021 obviously had their doubts in the project. Cambodia decided to go it alone and put a lot of state money into it and this money could have been used for more obvious benefit, such as surface transport and electricity infrastructure.
Speaking of roads, every city in the world seems to have to relearn the same hard lesson - building new roads in urban areas is often the road to nowhere as each flyover bridge simply pushes the traffic bottleneck up a few metres. Phnom Penh needs a transport policy that encourages public transport, cycling and walking. And the new airport needs a good rail link because otherwise the new roads will land you up at some bottleneck. Travelling to and from the city centre, or anywhere not in the southern quadrant, will be time consuming.
Another point to consider is that all the economies that fix the price of refined oil (gasoline etc) are having problems because the price of oil has stayed high for so long. They are feeling the pinch quite badly from this - they desperately need the price of oil to fall a lot and stay low so that they can refill their subsidy coffers. There is no sign of that happening right now, indeed oil could well go up a lot from here.
You have made the point that airport fees at PNH are high compared to local airports. On the opening of the new airport, there will be a temptation to increase them further and this will be a drag on the expansion of passenger numbers. Quite a conundrum. Something similar could happen to charges for transport to and from the airport.
It's good that an agreement has been reached that permits closure of the current airport but of course the real estate value of the site is probably not what is was in 2019.
I wish the new airport well and, being the only airport of a capital city, it will survive and hopefully flourish. This should not stop us from questioning the economics of it and lessons can be learned for future projects.
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Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Just immagine Cambodia in 2024 with NO new recent aiports. None of the old airports would be near max capacity. Billions could have been better spent.
Those mega project just create huge corruption
Those mega project just create huge corruption
work is for people who cant find truffles
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Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
Vinci and the government SSCA said after the last extension that there's no more room for further expansion.armchairlawyer wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 2:05 pmThank you for the link, although I could not find the numbers - I'm sure they are buried in there somewhere.rogerrabbit wrote: ↑Wed Apr 17, 2024 9:02 pm
Vinci website has all the numbers. Exact number for 2019 was 6,029,000. This can be found for example from this report: https://www.vinci-airports.com/sites/de ... ogb_ok.pdf
Wikipedia seem to have same what Vinci reports on their website.
The airport was running at it's maximum capacity back in 2019. Both passenger and runway infrastructure caused struggle at peak hours.
And most importantly current airport has no space to grow anymore. There's no space for additional taxiways/runways or terminal building, and especially cargo facilities are from early 2000s and are way too small.
The airport doesn't have enough commercial space either. And that is where the airports make money now days. For example there's only space for one proper lounge and that was pretty packed back in 2019 at times.
There are big airports in world that have only one runway, but in those airport planes don't need to taxi on runway and do u-turns to take-off which of course has huge impact on capacity how many flights per hour the airport can handle.
The buildings could have been extended considerably so I do not agree that was a restraint. As for taxiways, I doubt this would have been unachievable judging by the appearance of the site and in any case there is considerable aircraft movement capacity as it is. How often have you had to stack flying into PNH?
I can see that the way that passenger arrivals were growing in the lead up to end of 2019 that there was a genuine case to be made for a new airport. But Covid changed all those assumptions, and the green agenda has also got stronger in the meantime. The Chinese investors who decided to pull out in 2021 obviously had their doubts in the project. Cambodia decided to go it alone and put a lot of state money into it and this money could have been used for more obvious benefit, such as surface transport and electricity infrastructure.
Speaking of roads, every city in the world seems to have to relearn the same hard lesson - building new roads in urban areas is often the road to nowhere as each flyover bridge simply pushes the traffic bottleneck up a few metres. Phnom Penh needs a transport policy that encourages public transport, cycling and walking. And the new airport needs a good rail link because otherwise the new roads will land you up at some bottleneck. Travelling to and from the city centre, or anywhere not in the southern quadrant, will be time consuming.
Another point to consider is that all the economies that fix the price of refined oil (gasoline etc) are having problems because the price of oil has stayed high for so long. They are feeling the pinch quite badly from this - they desperately need the price of oil to fall a lot and stay low so that they can refill their subsidy coffers. There is no sign of that happening right now, indeed oil could well go up a lot from here.
You have made the point that airport fees at PNH are high compared to local airports. On the opening of the new airport, there will be a temptation to increase them further and this will be a drag on the expansion of passenger numbers. Quite a conundrum. Something similar could happen to charges for transport to and from the airport.
It's good that an agreement has been reached that permits closure of the current airport but of course the real estate value of the site is probably not what is was in 2019.
I wish the new airport well and, being the only airport of a capital city, it will survive and hopefully flourish. This should not stop us from questioning the economics of it and lessons can be learned for future projects.
I'm pretty sure I read that the state hasn't invested more than the original amount. The missing Chinese money has come from local private companies and companies, such as ABA, buying bonds.
And I totally agree that Phnom Penh would need such a transport policy, and all the current solutions for traffic problems are just short-term band-aid solutions.
Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
I guess covid was not foreseen.truffledog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 6:35 pm Just immagine Cambodia in 2024 with NO new recent aiports. None of the old airports would be near max capacity. Billions could have been better spent.
Those mega project just create huge corruption
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Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
I thought they were having big funding issues and meeting their deadline goals?
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Re: Farewell to an Era: Phnom Penh International Airport Set to Shut Down to Make Way for New Airport Next Year
What airport was running near max capacity before covid hit?Kammekor wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 10:37 pmI guess covid was not foreseen.truffledog wrote: ↑Fri Apr 19, 2024 6:35 pm Just immagine Cambodia in 2024 with NO new recent aiports. None of the old airports would be near max capacity. Billions could have been better spent.
Those mega project just create huge corruption
work is for people who cant find truffles
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