During my review trip, I had a layover at Techo International Airport (KTI), which is the new international airport in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The airport only opened in September 2025, so it’s about two months old. This was a pretty interesting layover for a couple of reasons, which I’d like to share in this post.
Now, I can’t imagine that Techo Airport gets many transit passengers, and I wasn’t 100% sure I’d be able to transit airside without entering the country. Cambodia has a visa requirement, though you can get a visa on arrival. So my approach was simple — I’d try to do an international transit while staying airside, and if that wasn’t possible, I’d simply get a visa on arrival. No big deal, right?
Upon arrival at Techo Airport, I headed into the arrivals hall, and was shocked to see clear signage for international transit — hey, this is going to be easy!
After following the signage in the direction of international transit, I found myself at a counter. I presented my mobile boarding pass for my Etihad flight, and the immigration officer looked at it confused. He gestured for me to take a seat, and said “someone from the airline will come.”
So I walked away from the counter for a second, but then thought, “wait a second, that makes no sense.” My connection wasn’t for about six hours, and it was clear to me he wasn’t actually calling anyone to meet me, since he didn’t take down any information. So I politely walked back to the counter, and said “excuse me, how long until someone from the airline comes?”
At this point he took another look at my boarding pass, took pictures of it with his phone, and made a couple of phone calls. Then he sent me around the corner, where there was actually an international transit security checkpoint. Okay, that makes more sense.
There were two separate scanning lanes, and a total of five people staffing this checkpoint. I thought to myself “well maybe they have more people connecting internationally than I would’ve assumed.”
But as I walked up to the scanner, the security person sort of had a deer-in-headlights look on her face, as if they weren’t actually expecting anyone.
I showed her my boarding pass, and she took a picture of it. Then she called over someone else, who also looked at my boarding pass and took a picture of it. Then that person got on the phone. Then someone else showed up who — you guessed it — took a picture of my boarding pass, and got on the phone. Who is getting all of these pictures and phone calls?!?
What’s bizarre here is that they weren’t actually asking me any questions about where I was coming from, and there was no indication that anything was wrong. I even asked if everything was okay or if they needed anything else, and they said everything was fine. As I said above, if they had told me I needed to clear immigration, I would’ve been totally fine with it, but they didn’t.
I stood at the security checkpoint for around 20 minutes, as they went back and forth and were talking about my situation. There were no other transit passengers during that entire time, for what it’s worth.
Eventually I was cleared to go, so everything was fine. I placed all my items on the scanner to the right side, though then they realized it wasn’t working, or something. So then they asked me to place my items on the left scanner. Then they determined that scanner wasn’t working either, or something.
So they carried all my luggage through the metal detectors and to the other end. Then I had a group of people simultaneously going through every millimeter of my luggage, taking apart everything. It was as thorough as you’d expect to be searched if you were in secondary and suspected of drug trafficking, or something (instead of having already cleared security at another airport). After that, I was sent on my way!
I’ve gotta say, this has to be the most bizarre international transit situation I’ve ever experienced. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had much less pleasant international transit experiences (hiiiii, Cairo!), but nothing quite this strange.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
