Sky Angkor Airlines (ZA, Phnom Penh) General Manager Lee Moon Seop has confirmed the Cambodian carrier has dropped plans to wet-lease two SSJ 100/95s from Red Wings Airlines (WZ, Moscow Domodedovo).
Announced in August last year as a tripartite lease agreement with Russian lessor Ilyushin Finance Co., the aircraft were to have arrived by December 2015. Had the agreement worked out, it would have seen Sky Angkor Airlines directly lease two SuperJets from the IFC this year.
However, Lee told the Phnom Penh Post that the deal had proven problematic given Cambodia's Secretariat of State Civil Aviation would have to type-certify the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft twinjet resulting in additional delays and costs.
“We abandoned the deal to lease the two aircraft from Sukhoi . . . because there were many problems we would have to deal with, such as [specialised training for] pilots, cabin crews, engineers, maintenance procedures and so on,” he said. “Our systems and organisation are based only on the A320 series, and we found that we could not handle or afford the [additional] expenses.”
Since then, Sky Angkor Airlines has opted to lease in additional A320 capacity. In September 2015, it signed a five-year co-operation agreement with the Small Planet Group wherein each winter season, Small Planet Airlines (Vilnius) will base part of its fleet in Asia to provide capacity to the Cambodian operator. This year, it has opted to lease a pair of A320-200s from Avion Express (X9, Vilnius) as well.
As such, Sky Angkor’s current fleet comprises five A320-200s and one A321-200. It operates scheduled domestic flights and serves destinations in China and South Korea from its Siem Reap and Sihanoukville.
