China Eastern Airlines, one of the country's largest carriers, has opened a new route from the southwestern city of Kunming to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.

Since early November, three regular flights per week have flown to the southeast Asian nation's capital, and a CRJ-200 with a capacity of 50 passengers has been used for the new air service, said Wang Qian, a spokeswoman for the company's Yunnan branch in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

Flights take off from Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province, at 7:15 a.m. on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, and arrive in Phnom Penh at 10:40 a.m. local time, she said.

Return flights leave Phnom Penh at 11:30 a.m. local time the same day, she said.

The flights make a stopover in the southern Chinese city of Nanning for 40 minutes.

"The new air service will help boost the travel market of Yunnan and Cambodia and also economic exchanges between the two countries," she said.

(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2007)