Directions

The airport’s located to the west of the city alongside Russian Federation Boulevard, one of the main routes out of Phnom Penh, just north-east of the junctions of National Highways 3 and 4. Depending on traffic, it can take anything between half-an-hour and 75 minutes to get from the centre of town to the airport.

An online map with Phnom Penh International Airport pinned on it can be found through the following link (courtesy of Google Maps):
Google Maps: Phnom Penh International Airport

Contact details

A range of telephone numbers are available for Phnom Penh International Airport via the website’s useful contacts page.

A contact form can also be found on the website.

Official website: http://www.cambodia-airports.com/index.php?airport=PNH

Please note that Phnom Penh International Airport’s web presence is through an overall site for Cambodia Airports – while browsing through their site, make sure that the page you are looking at relates to Phnom Penh and not another airport.

Facilities for disabled people

The airport’s website doesn’t have a great deal of information, although it does state that the airport strives to go beyond the legal minimum requirement and to make all customers feel included in the travelling process, regardless of their needs.

There are wheelchair facilities available, and boarding bridges so that it generally shouldn’t be necessary to be carried up stairs.

Toilet facilities are rather hit-and-miss – our correspondent reported that one of the older ones had a grabrail and a wider entrance, but otherwise had no design features to make it more usable for people with reduced mobility or impaired vision. The newer ones were better, and less grotty – although supplies (eg of soap) may be an issue. One women’s toilet inside departures was clean and well-equipped – except for the absence of a seat on the toilet.

There are a few kiosks and restaurants along the front of the terminal building where it’s possible to sit outside and have a bite and a beer.

Hotels near Phnom Penh International Airport

CanDoCanGo (CAN!) is affiliated with Booking.com, one of the best known names in the online hotel reservations business. Cut down on your searching time by going straight to our page of hotels near Phnom Penh International Airport with facilities for disabled guests.

There are several hotels available which have specially adapted facilities and rooms for disabled guests. (The information is included in the “Hotel Facilities” section of each individual hotel.) Using Booking.com’s user-friendly search box also enables you to specify a host of other options, such as your preferred chain, hotels of a particular character or style, and even what distance from the airport you require.

Written by Theodore Koukouvitis, the book rejects the usual approach of ordinary guidebooks – you’ll find no recommendations of cheap hotels or restaurants in here. Instead, Koukouvitis digs below the veneer of “tourist” Greece and reveals the substance beneath: the heritage of a civilisation that stretches back over three millennia and is still evolving today. A professional writer by trade who’s spent much of his life dealing with the Greek hospitality industry as both a customer and a worker, he has a rare grasp of what the average international tourist in Greece gets to experience – and, crucially, what gets missed out.

The Smart Tourist’s Guide to Greece is a no-holds-barred look at the wars, treachery and scandal that have shaped modern Greece, as well as the way that Greece’s interactions with its neighbours and visitors colours some Greek citizens’ perceptions of “typical” tourists from various parts of the world. It’s a frank account, often coloured with wry humour. Yet Koukouvitis manages to remain respectful of his subjects, even when he’s critical of them.

There’s plenty of good guidance on how to avoid awkward situations. Greek society, laws, religion and politics are all explained clearly and reassuringly. A word on some of the most egregious scams is there to help you avoid getting ripped off. And section on disabled travel opportunities tells how far Greece has come in the wake of the 2004 Summer Olympics – and, unfortunately, how far it still has to go.

If you want to know more about the real Greece today and how to spot what most tourists are missing, then this is the book for you.

Launch offer!

The good news is that you don’t even have to buy the book, if you’re quick! It’s available for free download from the Kindle Store until 0700 GMT on Monday 24 September.

Not got a Kindle? It doesn’t matter – there’s a whole range of apps and plugins available for download from Amazon to enable you to read Kindle books on a computer or handheld device.

Disabled activists are planning a high-profile protest that will highlight the inaccessibility of the public transport system, and demonstrate the problems that will be caused by the government’s cuts to disability living allowance (DLA).

The national day of action on Tuesday 19 June is being planned by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and London’s campaigning accessible transport charity Transport for All (TfA).

They point out that an estimated 500,000 disabled people will lose their DLA as a result of government cuts and reforms.

Many of them use their DLA to pay for a car through the Motability scheme or to pay taxi fares, while others receive “passported” benefits as a result of their DLA, such as a blue parking badge or a pass for free public transport.

DPAC and TfA argue that thousands of disabled people will be forced to use an inaccessible public transport system when they lose their DLA.

Their protest will focus on central London, where the aim will be to cause “maximum but legal chaos”, with the hope that it will attract not just hardened activists but also campaigners who do not feel comfortable taking part in more confrontational direction action.

It follows a more traditional direct action protest held in Trafalgar Square last month, in which DPAC activists brought traffic chaos to central London by chaining their wheelchairs across busy pedestrian crossings in protest at government cuts and welfare reforms.

Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s steering group and one of the organisers of next month’s action, said: “People will be forced [by the DLA cuts] back onto a public transport system which doesn’t really cater for their needs.

“We will be exercising our right to use public transport, a system that we are told is accessible, so let’s put that to the test.”

Organisers are also planning a lobby of MPs at the House of Commons, with disabled people then descending on local buses for the short journey to Covent Garden to protest outside the headquarters of the Confederation of Passenger Transport, which represents the UK’s bus, coach and light rail industries.

They hope that disabled people – and carers, personal assistants and older people – will invite their MPs to join them on the bus trip.

And they are urging those who are unable to make it to London to organise other protests across the UK, which could include inviting their MP to join them on a trip on public transport.

Lianna Etkind, TfA’s campaigns and outreach co-ordinator, said: “This is going to be a very inclusive action that hopefully everybody will feel able to join in with.”

She added: “If the government wants to get more disabled people off benefits and into work, the best thing would be for them to focus on opening up transport for everyone.”

For more information about the protest, visit the websites of DPAC or Transport for All. It is hoped that transport “buddies” will be available for disabled campaigners who need someone to accompany them on the protest.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Some wheelchair-accessible vehicles (WAVs) are potentially unsafe for passengers or drivers travelling in their wheelchairs, and should never have been allowed on the roads, claim campaigners.

The campaigning user-led charity Disabled Motoring UK (DM UK) spoke out as it joined Constables Mobility – a leading conversion company – to launch a campaign calling for stricter testing of WAVs.

The No Compromises! campaign calls on the government to make it illegal for any WAV model to be allowed on the road without first undergoing strict “sled” testing.

It is also urging disabled customers to ask for a certificate of sled testing before they buy a WAV, and is calling on the Motability car scheme to stop leasing WAVs that are not “sled tested”.

Helen Dolphin, DM UK’s director of policy and campaigns, said: “I want Motability to take note and realise that this is something that should be done.

“They should stop accepting cars onto their scheme unless they have had all the proper checks.”

A sled test involves strapping a crash-test dummy into a wheelchair within the car, which is put through head-on collisions to check that the belts and their fixtures are strong enough to withstand an accident and keep the wheelchair user secure.

DM UK and Constables say the extra test is vital because of the significant and complex changes made to cars when they are converted to become wheelchair-accessible.

Figures on accidents involving WAVs are not collected, so it is impossible to say how many wheelchair users may have been injured or even killed because of problems with the conversions of their vehicles.

But Dolphin said: “It is amazing that vehicles are being sold that may not be safe for the drivers and their disabled passengers, and we feel strongly that this must stop.

“Until a car has had that kind of test, there is no guarantee that it will hold or restrain a wheelchair user if they have had an accident.”

She added: “I don’t want to drive anybody out of business but at the end of the day the most important thing here is disabled people’s safety.”

A Motability spokeswoman said that standards for all their conversions were governed by European Union (EU) law and backed by industry bodies such as the Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle Converters Association (WAVCA).

She said: “All WAVs supplied to Motability customers are compliant with EU and UK regulations, in place at the time of the vehicle registration, as well as adopting any additional standards agreed and required by WAVCA.”

But when asked how many Motability vehicles had not been sled tested, and whether Motability would take any action to ensure all vehicles were sled tested, she refused to comment.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat local transport minister, said he welcomed DM UK’s “commitment to ensuring wheelchair users travel in safety” and shared that objective.

He added: “All vehicles need to meet a range of safety rules to enable them to operate on the road. This ensures that good levels of protection are offered to the driver and passengers.”

But he said: “We have seen no convincing evidence to show that the approval system for converted vehicles needs changing, or that road safety is being compromised as a result of vehicles being modified post-registration. However, we will continue to monitor this closely with industry.”    

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Four young people have spent four days travelling more than 800 miles around Wales on public transport, to raise awareness of the barriers they and other disabled people face.

The “All Aboard” Transport Challenge was part of the 40th birthday celebrations of Disability Wales, the leading disabled people’s organisation in Wales.

Although there were few major problems, the event had been sponsored by the transport company Arriva, so its staff were aware in advance of the route.

But the four travellers were still able to highlight a number of areas where access could be improved.

The four young people, all members of Pembrokeshire Young Voices for Choices, started their four-day challenge in Haverfordwest on Tuesday 17 April, and visited towns such as Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Bangor, Aberystwyth and Carmarthen, before returning to Haverfordwest.

There was also an unscheduled trip between Carmarthen and Swansea, which again passed off without major problems.

One of the four, Sian Jones, a wheelchair user from Goodwick, said the four days had gone better than expected, with helpful staff, but she said she had hoped for “more of a challenge”.

Among problems she encountered, she twice experienced train staff addressing her personal assistant (PA) rather than talking to her directly, while there was often luggage blocking the wheelchair spaces on both trains and buses, train toilets were not big enough for both her and her PA, and bus timetables were hard to read and understand.

Jones stressed that the comparatively problem-free four days did not mean there were no improvements needed to access on public transport.

She said: “I have thought [on previous occasions] that I was going to be stuck on the train because they had forgotten about me. They have forgotten to book me in and forgotten to put the ramp out for me to get off.”

Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said: “Overall, it was a positive experience but they have previously had difficult experiences travelling on public transport, or have even avoided using it altogether.”

She added: “We ended with a celebratory event at Haverfordwest and a representative from Arriva Trains Wales was there taking notes.

“There has been quite a big investment in the infrastructure and train and station improvements but he recognised that there was still work to be done on staff attitudes and staff training.

“It was good that they had a good experience because it shows that it can be done and doesn’t take a huge amount of effort to get it right.

“If it can be done for these four then it should be done for any disabled person travelling any time anywhere by public transport.”

Disability Wales will now meet with Arriva Trains Wales to discuss issues that arose from the event, and also hopes to meet with Carl Sargeant, the Welsh government minister for local government and communities, and members of the National Assembly’s new cross-party group on disability.

As another part of its 40th anniversary celebrations, Disability Wales is producing The Story at 40, a film funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund that will record the experiences of Welsh disabled people who were born in 1972.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Concerns have been raised about how members of the public are being chosen to take part in the Paralympic torch relay – a major event in the lead-up to this summer’s London 2012 games.

LOCOG, London 2012’s organising committee, is preparing to announce the nominees who have been chosen to carry the Paralympic torch from Stoke Mandeville to the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, over 24 hours from 28 to 29 August.

In all, 580 disabled and non-disabled “torchbearers” will carry the flame in teams of five, with each team covering about half a mile.

Three London 2012 sponsors – Sainsbury’s, Lloyds TSB and BT – have each chosen about 140 people to take part in the relay from thousands of public nominations, with the other 150 or so to be selected by the International Paralympic Committee, LOCOG, the British Paralympic Association and other London 2012 sponsors.

Each of the three main relay sponsors has chosen a different way to select its torchbearers, with BT using one of Britain’s greatest Paralympians, Lee Pearson, to judge nominations.

But Disability News Service has discovered that one of the sponsors – Sainsbury’s – is using four non-disabled employees to pick its torchbearers.

Julie Newman, acting chair of the UK Disabled People’s Council, said Sainsbury’s decision made a mockery of disabled people’s often-repeated demand: “Nothing about us without us.”

She added: “It is so patronising. It is disrespectful and it discredits them rather than us.”

Dr Ju Gosling, co-chair of Regard, the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender disabled people’s organisation, added: “It seems like the whole way the Paralympics are shaping up.

“Ultimately, so much is happening without us. To my mind this just devalues everything the Paralympics stands for.”

A Sainsbury’s spokesman said: “The selection was carried out by four colleagues from different teams within Sainsbury’s.

“While none of the members of the panel have a disability, we did confirm our selections with both the British Paralympic Association and LOCOG for suitability purposes.”

No-one at LOCOG was available to comment.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

New figures show the number of disabled people granted funds to make their workplaces more accessible has fallen sharply again.

The number of “new customers helped” through the Access to Work (AtW) scheme has been falling steadily since the general election in 2010, apart from a small rise in the second quarter of 2011/12.

But the latest figures appear to show that that increase was just a blip, with the number of new customers helped falling from 2,660 in the second quarter of 2011/12 to just 2,390 in the third quarter, a drop of more than 10 per cent.

If this trend continues, the number of disabled people helped for the first time through the scheme is set to dip below 10,000 in 2011/12, compared with a peak of 16,540 in 2009/10.

The new figures were released on the same day that Maria Miller, the minister for disabled people, told the All-Party Parliamentary Disability Group that disabled people whose jobs were at risk because of losing their disability living allowance through the government’s cuts and reforms should think of applying for AtW instead.

A Department for Work and Pensions spokesman suggested that the fall in new AtW customers helped was likely to reflect an increase in the contributions many employers now have to make towards funding lower-cost adaptations.

And he said the number of existing customers continuing to receive AtW support was still rising, while the government had spent £105 million on AtW in 2010/11, £6 million more than in 2009/10.

He said there had also been a rise in the number of new customers with mental health conditions and learning difficulties.

The latest figures follow a series of concerns about the coalition’s commitment to the scheme – which provides funding for adaptations, equipment and ongoing support at work – since it came to power.

In August last year, Disability News Service revealed that disabled people receiving AtW were being sent “hostile” and “threatening” letters by DWP, giving them just a week to confirm they still needed their funding before it was withdrawn.

Last June, Liz Sayce, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, published a review of employment support for the government and focused strongly on the need to expand and improve AtW.

But the government’s response to her review made several references to concerns that her AtW recommendations could put “additional pressure on funding at a time when resources are limited”.

And in 2010, the government backtracked on a high-profile pledge to allow disabled people to secure AtW funding before they applied for a job.

The coalition also quietly introduced new rules which mean employers or disabled employees themselves now have to fund equipment such as basic versions of voice-activated software, most adapted chairs, and satellite navigation devices, rather than having them funded through AtW.

For information on AtW, visit the government’s Direct.gov.uk website.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

A leading disabled people’s organisation (DPO) has called on the disability movement to rally behind Remploy workers and fight the government’s planned closures of at least 36 factories, and the loss of more than 1,500 disabled people’s jobs.

Inclusion London is calling on other DPOs, disabled people and activists in London to sign a letter opposing the planned closures.

The letter – which will be used for campaigning purposes – was due to be read out at a meeting organised this evening (Thursday) by Remploy workers in central London.

Inclusion London says in the letter that the closures “will effectively put these disabled workers on the scrapheap”, because of the recession and government cuts to benefits and other support for disabled people.

The letter – which will soon be posted on Inclusion London’s website – warns that up to 40 people are chasing every job in some Remploy factory areas, while Inclusion London is hearing of “increasing numbers of disabled people who in despair are taking their own lives after loss of benefits”.

The letter calls for the necessary investment and support to turn the factories into viable user-led social enterprises, as well as more government investment in Access to Work and other employment support, a commitment to tackling workplace discrimination and the right to inclusive education and training.

It adds: “We reject the view that the way to respond to discrimination and exclusion in the workplace is through segregated employment but we also reject the view that if we are against segregation we must go along with these job cuts and closures.

“We say no to any cuts that will push even more disabled people into poverty and isolation.”

Since the government announced the closures early last month, some DPOs have backed its plans, arguing that it was not right to continue to fund sheltered, segregated workplaces.

But Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “This is a cut. It isn’t about inclusion. We shouldn’t let the government justify this in the name of inclusion.

“You can be against all segregation and also oppose these cuts and job losses.”

She accepted that the disability movement has been divided on whether to support the closures, but she said: “What we need is a dialogue. This is us putting an alternative view forward which hopefully will get a debate going. That’s what we need.”

The planned closures were part of the government’s response to a consultation on last year’s review of employment support by Liz Sayce, chief executive of Disability Rights UK.

Meanwhile, the government announced today (26 April) that it was offering up to £10,000 worth of “expert support” to Remploy workers who want to put together business plans to take over their factories.

Maria Miller, the Conservative minister for disabled people, said: “We want to encourage as many employees to come forward as possible. This money will help support employees to put together credible bids to safeguard the jobs of disabled people.”

But Les Woodward, Remploy convenor for the GMB union, dismissed the offer as part of “the government’s propaganda machine”, and said the money would merely benefit solicitors, consultants and financial experts, rather than Remploy workers.

On Friday (20 April), hundreds of disabled Remploy workers and other campaigners took part in demonstrations over the closures, organised by the Remploy unions GMB and Unite.

The protests took place outside Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) offices in Sheffield and London, and the offices of the Secretary of State for Scotland in Edinburgh.

Linda Menzies, a union rep at Remploy’s Cowdenbeath factory, attended the Edinburgh demonstration.

She said: “People are never going to work again [if the factories close]. They have worked their life at Remploy and don’t know anything else. They won’t have the support they have at Remploy.

“It’s their life. They don’t speak to anybody outside Remploy. If they send them on holiday for a week they don’t speak to a single soul.

“What’s going to happen to these people? Are they going to be completely forgotten about?”

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Black and minority ethnic (BME) disabled people face a “disaster”, with deteriorating health, increased poverty, and lower life expectancy, if nothing is done to deal with their unmet needs, according to a leading disabled activist.

The warning comes as a new report warns that BME disabled people face “wide-ranging, subtle and complex” forms of discrimination, and have “considerable” unmet needs.

The report, Over-looked Communities, Over-due Change, says many BME disabled people – particularly women, migrants and carers – face social isolation.

Many of those who took part in research for the report struggle with inaccessible services, and have experienced stigma within their own communities because of their impairments.

Recent migrants and older people frequently felt their limited spoken English was a barrier to obtaining the services they needed, the report says.

Although there was little evidence of direct racism in service provision, the researchers did find examples of discrimination based on ethnicity and disability, such as care workers who refused to take their shoes off when visiting a disabled woman’s house and other such cases of a “failure to adapt working practices to cultural preferences”.

The research was carried out by Equalities National Council (ENC), a BME disabled people’s organisation, and the disability charity Scope.

Julie Jaye Charles, ENC’s chief executive, said she was not surprised that the report revealed deprivation “right across the board”, including in housing, education, employment and health, as well as a clear need for more advocacy support.

She said: “There is a huge need out there that cannot be ignored any more. There must be resources allocated to it.”

She warned that if nothing was done, there would be “a disaster” for disabled BME communities.

She said: “People are going to be dying younger, people’s health is going to be deteriorating quickly, there will be a rise in mental health difficulties, people will lack trust in government and I also think the housing needs of individuals will get worse.”

But she also said that parts of the disability movement itself were guilty of “blatant discrimination”.

She said: “BME disabled voices are not heard in the mainstream disability movement. I have always said that it needs to have a better understanding of the needs of BME disabled people and it needs to act on it. They should be fighting for us to get the resources, to turn this around.”

But she also called on the big, non-user-led disability charities to start working with smaller organisations of disabled people, particularly the few BME, user-led organisations.

She hopes eventually to see a series of social enterprise “hubs” across the country that mirror ENC’s provision of advocacy and mentoring in London, to help BME disabled people access services and improve their lives.

The report says there are an estimated one million BME disabled people in the UK, and nearly half live in households in poverty (44 per cent, compared with 32 per cent of all disabled people, and 17 per cent of non-disabled people), although the true levels of poverty are likely to be even higher once disability-related costs are taken into account.

And even though employment rates for BME disabled people are also lower, with about half of all working-age disabled adults in employment, compared with only three in ten Pakistani or Bangladeshi disabled people, BME disabled people are less likely to be receiving benefits than other disabled people.

The report contains a number of other recommendations for local and national government and service providers, including a call for more person-centred services and information in other languages than English.

It suggests that local councils run targeted information campaigns to raise awareness of services, and that they improve their knowledge of BME disabled people’s needs.

The report also calls on the government to ensure that BME disabled people’s needs and views are included in both its upcoming disability strategy and a new race equality strategy, with an implementation plan linking the two strategies, and ensure that BME disabled people are considered when assessing the equality impact of its policies.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

New figures show the proportion of disabled people found eligible for unconditional support under the much-criticised “fitness for work” regime is continuing to rise.

The figures suggest that improvements to the work capability assessment (WCA) – which tests eligibility for employment and support allowance (ESA), the replacement for incapacity benefit – are beginning to take effect.

Rather than focusing on the improvements, Conservative employment minister Chris Grayling said the figures showed “the majority of new claimants to sickness benefits are in fact able to do some work”.

But the figures show that Grayling may not be able to continue making that claim for much longer.

From June to August last year, about 27 per cent of new claimants were placed in the support group, for those with limited capability for work-related activity, with another 19 per cent placed in the work-related activity group, for those with lower support needs who are expected to move gradually towards work. Both groups receive ESA.

The other 54 per cent of those whose WCAs had been completed were found fit for work.

The number found fit for work is likely to fall even further once the results of appeals have been included.

When the WCA was first introduced, just 11 per cent of new claimants were placed in the support group, with 65 per cent found fit for work.

The figures provide fresh evidence of the unfairness of the original WCA, introduced in 2008 by the Labour government.

Disabled activists believe the WCA is still inflexible and unfair, despite the changes aimed at improving the test, many of them as a result of independent reviews by Professor Malcolm Harrington.

The report itself suggests the “downward trend” in claimants assessed as fit for work could be due to the improvements made to the test.

But no-one from DWP was available to say whether Grayling welcomed the rise in the number of disabled people being found not fit for work.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com