Throughout my evaluate journey, I had a layover at Techo Worldwide Airport (KTI), which is the brand new worldwide airport in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The airport solely opened in September 2025, so it’s about two months previous. This was a fairly attention-grabbing layover for a few causes, which I’d wish to share on this publish.
Worldwide transit, a overseas idea at Techo Airport
First for some background, let me clarify why I had a layover in Cambodia, of all locations. Lengthy story brief, I discovered Etihad top notch fare out of Techo Airport (as a way to evaluate the service’s new A321LR top notch). On high of that, I used to be capable of e book Singapore Airways’ 737 MAX enterprise class to the airport, letting me try one more product that has been on my checklist.
Now, I can’t think about that Techo Airport will get many transit passengers, and I wasn’t 100% positive I’d have the ability to transit airside with out getting into the nation. Cambodia has a visa requirement, although you may get a visa on arrival. So my strategy was easy — I’d attempt to do a global transit whereas staying airside, and if that wasn’t attainable, I’d merely get a visa on arrival. No huge deal, proper?
Upon arrival at Techo Airport, I headed into the arrivals corridor, and was shocked to see clear signage for worldwide transit — hey, that is going to be simple!
After following the signage within the path of worldwide transit, I discovered myself at a counter. I introduced my cellular boarding go for my Etihad flight, and the immigration officer checked out it confused. He gestured for me to sit down, and stated “somebody from the airline will come.”
So I walked away from the counter for a second, however then thought, “wait a second, that is mindless.” My connection wasn’t for about six hours, and it was clear to me he wasn’t truly calling anybody to satisfy me, since he didn’t take down any data. So I politely walked again to the counter, and stated “excuse me, how lengthy till somebody from the airline comes?”
At this level he took one other take a look at my boarding go, took footage of it along with his cellphone, and made a few cellphone calls. Then he despatched me across the nook, the place there was truly a global transit safety checkpoint. Okay, that makes extra sense.
There have been two separate scanning lanes, and a complete of 5 folks staffing this checkpoint. I believed to myself “properly possibly they’ve extra folks connecting internationally than I might’ve assumed.”
However as I walked as much as the scanner, the safety particular person kind of had a deer-in-headlights look on her face, as in the event that they weren’t truly anticipating anybody.
I confirmed her my boarding go, and he or she took an image of it. Then she referred to as over another person, who additionally checked out my boarding go and took an image of it. Then that particular person bought on the cellphone. Then another person confirmed up who — you guessed it — took an image of my boarding go, and bought on the cellphone. Who’s getting all of those footage and cellphone calls?!?
What’s weird right here is that they weren’t truly asking me any questions on the place I used to be coming from, and there was no indication that something was fallacious. I even requested if every little thing was okay or in the event that they wanted the rest, and so they stated every little thing was nice. As I stated above, if that they had informed me I wanted to clear immigration, I might’ve been completely nice with it, however they didn’t.
I stood on the safety checkpoint for round 20 minutes, as they went backwards and forwards and had been speaking about my scenario. There have been no different transit passengers throughout that whole time, for what it’s price.
Ultimately I used to be cleared to go, so every little thing was nice. I positioned all my gadgets on the scanner to the fitting facet, although then they realized it wasn’t working, or one thing. So then they requested me to put my gadgets on the left scanner. Then they decided that scanner wasn’t working both, or one thing.
So that they carried all my baggage by way of the metallic detectors and to the opposite finish. Then I had a bunch of individuals concurrently going by way of each millimeter of my baggage, taking aside every little thing. It was as thorough as you’d count on to be searched in case you had been in secondary and suspected of drug trafficking, or one thing (as a substitute of getting already cleared safety at one other airport). After that, I used to be despatched on my approach!
I’ve gotta say, this must be probably the most weird worldwide transit scenario I’ve ever skilled. Don’t get me fallacious, I’ve had a lot much less nice worldwide transit experiences (hiiiii, Cairo!), however nothing fairly this unusual.
Like, that they had particular signage for worldwide transit, and so they had a really properly staffed worldwide transit safety checkpoint. But seemingly they weren’t truly set as much as deal with transit passengers, or one thing? I’m unsure if they only weren’t anticipating a transit passenger on Etihad, or what, however it’s unusual how neither scanner labored both. Anyway…
Techo Airport may be probably the most lovely on this planet!
This was my first time passing by way of Techo Airport (clearly… it simply opened two months in the past), however rattling, it is a beautiful facility. Purely when it comes to structure, this may be the prettiest midsize airport I’ve ever seen.
I suppose the airport initially has the capability for 13 million passengers per 12 months, however it’s undoubtedly not at capability but. Throughout my prolonged layover, it by no means bought busy in any respect. Severely, have you ever seen a prettier airport terminal?!
Unsurprisingly, the purchasing and eating weren’t notably spectacular. Nevertheless, the lounge scenario was good, with each a Plaza Premium and Plaza Premium First Lounge (I wouldn’t have anticipated there to be the latter). I’ll after all be reviewing these once I publish my full journey report.
Backside line
Phnom Penh’s new Techo Airport is totally beautiful, most likely the prettiest midsize airport I’ve ever seen. What a nice shock.
On the subject of worldwide transit on the airport (for the 2 different folks contemplating this), there’s excellent news and dangerous information. The excellent news is that it’s attainable. The dangerous information is that it doesn’t actually look like they’re arrange for this, regardless of the signage, the devoted safety checkpoint, and so forth. What an uncommon transit expertise this was!
Anybody have a guess of what precisely is up right here?
Supply hyperlink
