New name, same airline

Grounded Tonlesap Airlines has changed its name to Wat Phnom Airlines, an official with Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation said yesterday, about two months after the local chartered carrier suspended all of its flights.

Wat Phnom Airlines is now in the process of applying for a new Air Operator Certificate, said Vann Chanty, the secretariat’s director of air transport.

“The airline stopped flying two months ago, and someone from the office told us the company had cleared out,” said [a] former employer, who worked as a cabin crew member in the airline for more than a year, and is not being named out of concern for job security. …

The Post reported in February 2012 that Taiwanese airline Far Eastern Air Transport grounded a plane it leased to Tonlesap at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport that month, saying the company owed about $105,000 in aviation fuel fees. It had allegedly left more than 200 Taiwanese tourists stranded. Taiwan was one of a handful of regional destinations for Tonlesap since it started flying chartered flights from the airport in Siem Reap in 2011.

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/2013061966352/Business/new-name-same-airline.html