Thailand forum

FYI, just checked the Lao Air website and it looks like ECCR has been removed from the general sales agent listings, interesting

Is www.laoairlines.com a bit of a joke? I want to view if flights are available between Vientienne and Phnom Penh and it wont let me do a search. It wont let me search any International journey. I wonder how people have booked in the past.

I have yet to fly Lao Air, although I have considered it to visit my cousin in Vientiane. I have, however, two concerns with the airline:

1. Safety. It's flying some pretty old aircraft and my confidence level that they are well maintained isn't high. Travelfish has a nice little write up on this. It's not horrible in this regard, but I am fussy about it.

2. Cost - it is not a cheap way to get around at all. I don't know why it's so much more expensive than Air Asia or Thai Airways, but it is.

So if I could find another transportation route, I would probably take it because I honestly don't like to fly. But I'll bet it's safer than taking a bus.

hi ben,

here's a link to the Travelfish article MADMAC mentioned, if you haven't read it yet. it is:

http://www.travelfish.org/feature/50

that article is a few years old now, so i can't say how up to date the information is. but i did do quite a bit of research before that article got posted, and it all pointed to lao airlines being at least as safe as other regional carriers and much safer than other types of local transportation.

i'd also heard that lao airlines wasn't using the scarier Y-12 aircraft anymore too, but i cannot tell from their website if that is true or not.

in any case, i've flown lao airlines three different times and had a pretty great experience each time. there are quite a few comments posted by other travelfishers at the end of the above article too. perhaps they'll help you decide if this is the right choice for you or not. regards.