Malaysia's low-cost carrier AirAsia launched daily flights from Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh yesterday, the company said.

The carrier said in a statement the it was the first low fare, no frills airline in Asia to gain entry into Cambodia.

"The new routes Phnom Penh-Bangkok and Phnom Penh-Kuala Lumpur are our second air routes to Indo-China after the Bangkok-Hanoi route," said Tassapon Bijleveld, chief of the carrier's subsidiary Thai AirAsia.

Very low fares

To promote the new routes, AirAsia said it would offer fares as low as 25 dollars for a one-way trip to Bangkok and 29 dollars one-way to Kuala Lumpur, through to March 25.

AirAsia was launched as a budget carrier in December 2001 with just two aircraft and has since become a significant regional player, with its business model increasingly imitated by national carriers and a host of new low-cost entrants.

The service will cater for a rising number of tourists to Cambodia, one of the world's poorest countries which is still struggling to recover from nearly three decades of conflict that ended in 1998.