Sky Angkor Airlines

Is Sky Angkor Airlines safe?

Mostly, but with less outside checking than we would like. Sky Angkor Airlines, a small private Cambodian airline, has flown Airbus jets since 2011 without an accident on record. It has never passed an IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, it flies older second-hand jets, and January 2025 brought two troubling events on the same aircraft in eight days. We score it 71, five points below Air Cambodia, the flag carrier, and above Lao Airlines next door.

Who is Sky Angkor?

Sky Angkor began flying in June 2011 and took its current name in 2014. It was built largely on Korean tourism: for years much of its flying was charters from Siem Reap and Phnom Penh to Korean and Chinese cities, sold through Korean travel agents, and its website is still Korean first. In the 2026–27 winter season its timetable shows two scheduled routes from Phnom Penh's new Techo airport: to Seoul-Incheon on most days and to Changsha in China twice a week, both with A320s. It has also flown to Bangkok.

The radio call sign is SKY ANGKOR, but the airline's ICAO entry is still under its first company name, Skywings Asia Airlines. Its codes are ZA and SWM. Do not confuse it with Air Cambodia, the flag carrier, which used to be called Cambodia Angkor Air.

January 2025: two events in eight days

On 17 January 2025, flight ZA679 was taxiing out at Bangkok for Phnom Penh when two crew members started fighting. Video posted online shows a commotion, a crew announcement asking passengers to stay calm and buckle up, and loud banging. The A321 returned to the gate, the airline had to bring in a replacement crew, and the flight left about six hours late. Sky Angkor apologised and said it had disciplined the two crew members. It did not say whether they were pilots or cabin crew.

On 25 January the same aircraft, XU-723, flew ZA672 from Phnom Penh to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport. Air traffic control cleared it to land on runway 20R. The crew first lined up with 20R, then moved across to 20L on short final and landed there. Nothing hit anything, but landing on a runway you were not cleared for is a classic accident risk at a busy airport with parallel runways, and Thailand's investigators classified it as a serious incident. We have not seen their findings.

These two events within eight days are the main reason the incidents score is 55. A fight among crew members says something about how an airline selects and manages its staff, and a wrong-runway landing usually points to crew workload and procedures.

Older events add little. In January 2017 an A320 from Dalian burst four main-wheel tyres after skidding on landing at Siem Reap, and Cambodia's aviation spokesman suspected faulty brakes; a week earlier a flight to Hefei had turned back with a cabin pressure problem. No one was hurt in either case.

Oversight and the missing audit

Cambodia's State Secretariat of Civil Aviation certifies the airline. No Cambodian airline is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, but Cambodia is not on the FAA's IASAFAA IASAThe US FAA's check of whether a country's aviation regulator meets ICAO standards. Category 1 means it does; Category 2 means it does not.More in the glossary list either, because no Cambodian airline flies to the United States, and the country publishes few accident or incident reports. That leaves IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary as the main independent check, and Sky Angkor does not have one: it is not an IATA member, and we found no IOSA registration. Air Cambodia has it, which is the main reason Sky Angkor's oversight score is 65 and Air Cambodia's 70.

What Sky Angkor flies

The airline's fleet page lists the Airbus A320ceo, A320neo and A321, all current types with long safety records. The jets are mostly second-hand: the A321 involved in both January 2025 events was 23 years old. Since mid-2026 three of its A320s have flown for India's SpiceJet on a damp lease, meaning Sky Angkor provides the aircraft and part of the crew. Sky Angkor publishes no fleet count or average age, so we score the fleet at 60.

Booking Sky Angkor

• Keep your belt on while you sleep. The Incheon flights leave Phnom Penh after midnight and cross the South China Sea, where storms bring sudden turbulence; a loosely fastened belt is the simplest protection.
• Know who is flying a SpiceJet booking. If your Indian domestic flight is on an XU-registered A320, Sky Angkor's certificate covers it.
• Prefer the scheduled flight to the package charter. Charter programmes sold by tour agents can change aircraft and times at short notice.

How we scored it

The accident record (84) carries the most weight: 15 years without an accident, on a small fleet. The environment (72) is mild, with big airports at both ends of most routes. Oversight (65) loses points for the missing IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit and a regulator that publishes little, the fleet (60) for older second-hand jets, and incidents (55) for the wrong-runway landing and the crew fight in January 2025.