Mae Hong Son Airport

Updated 2nd Sep 2026

What Mae Hong Son Airport is, and where it sits

Mae Hong Son Airport (HGN) is a single-runway domestic airport in northern Thailand, and there are no scheduled passenger flights to or from it. It is operated by the Department of Airports (DOA), and its International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) code is VTCH.

The airport sits on the edge of Mae Hong Son itself: its published coordinates and the town centre point are about 530 metres apart, with the runway lying to the east. The field is 929 feet (283 metres) above sea level.

Why you cannot fly to Mae Hong Son at the moment

The last flight carrying passengers was on 30 June 2025. Bangkok Airways had been running a linked service from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi through Lampang to Mae Hong Son, and the Department of Airports traffic figures record its aircraft here in every month from January to October 2025, though the movements from July onwards carried no passengers. The same figures show no scheduled commercial movements at all for January and February 2026, the most recent months the dataset publishes.

The withdrawal came in two steps: the airline suspended the through-service from Bangkok from 1 July 2025, giving fleet maintenance and commercial considerations as the reason, and the Bangkok to Lampang leg itself stopped from 26 October. Earlier that year the service had already been suspended between 15 March and 20 April, when wildfire smoke cut visibility across northern Thailand.

Before that, Nok Air connected Mae Hong Son to Bangkok Don Mueang, and it flew that route for the last time on 19 April 2023. The airline was retiring its 86-seat Q400 turboprops in favour of 189-seat Boeing 737-800s, which it judged too large for the passenger numbers this airport carried.

A replacement service was planned for 2026 and then shelved before it carried anyone. A startup, Ezy Airline, completed trial flights and intended to open bookings in August 2026 for a 10-seat Cessna 208B service from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son and to Pai. Its stated reason for dropping the plan was a charge at the Chiang Mai end, which it said was more than a completely full aircraft of that size could earn back in ticket revenue.

Mae Hong Son's governor, Wiboon Waewbanthit, said the province would seek a formal review of how Chiang Mai sets that charge. As of the end of August 2026, no commercial air service ran between Chiang Mai and either Mae Hong Son or Pai.

Getting there by road from Chiang Mai

The realistic way in is to fly to Chiang Mai and drive the rest. Chiang Mai International Airport (CNX) is the nearest airport with a working scheduled network, and Highway 1095 runs from there to Mae Hong Son. The drive is reported at six to seven hours.

Allow most of a day in each direction, and book the Chiang Mai leg as though the journey ends there. If the road is slow or closed, there is no flight to fall back on.

Runway and facilities

There is one runway, designated 11/29, 2,000 metres long and 30 metres wide, with an asphalt surface. Approaches are weather-sensitive at one end: the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand's aeronautical information publication tells pilots to use runway 11 only in good visibility, and requires an aircraft landing on it to stop within 150 metres of the far threshold. ATR72 turboprop operations carry extra crosswind limits and simulator-training conditions on top of that.

No fuel is available on the field, and the same aerodrome entry lists nothing at the airport for banking, medical or postal services. It places hotels, restaurants and taxis in the town rather than at the airport.

Where to read about Mae Hong Son itself

The town sits immediately beside the airport, but for now the last leg of the trip is a drive. The Mae Hong Son destination guide covers what there is to see and do once you are there.