Phetchabun Airport

Updated 2nd Sep 2026

Phetchabun Airport (PHY) has no scheduled passenger flights. It is a Department of Airports field in the north of Phetchabun province, and the aircraft using it are military, flight-training and private. The last passenger service was a charter to Bangkok that closed in August 2018.

There is nothing to book at Phetchabun Airport. The nearest airport with airline service is Phitsanulok, about 160 kilometres away by road, and the last section of this page covers that trip.

Where the airport is, and what is on the field

Phetchabun Airport stands in Tambon Lanbah, in Lom Sak district, which is not the district that holds the provincial capital. It opened on 8 April 2000, the Department of Airports operates it, and in aviation documents it appears as VTPB, its code in the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) system.

Lom Sak town is the nearer of the two towns, roughly 13 to 16 kilometres away. Phetchabun town is further, and the published figures for that leg disagree. The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand's aeronautical information publication says 36 kilometres north of the city, a straight line drawn from the coordinates in that same document gives about 29, and a 2022 Thai news report gives about 31.

There is one runway, 18/36, 2,100 metres long and 45 metres wide, in concrete and asphalt, on a site 450 feet above sea level. Rescue and fire fighting cover is category 5, and the publication records no capability to move a disabled aircraft off the runway. A Senate committee that visited in October 2023 put the site at about 4,100 rai and described it as Thailand's second largest airport by land area after Suvarnabhumi.

For a field that size, the entry in the aviation authority's aerodrome document for Phetchabun is short. It lists nothing under fuel, hangar space or repairs for visiting aircraft, and nothing under transport, medical facilities, bank, post office or tourist office. Hotels and restaurants appear on it only as being in the city.

The aerodrome and its air traffic services work 06:00 to 18:00 local time, which is a daylight-only window. The reporting office that serves the field is not on the field: the same document places it at Phitsanulok Airport, a province away.

No scheduled flights in the operator's own records

The Department of Airports publishes movement data for each of its airports, and for Phetchabun it records no scheduled domestic movements in 2025, and none in 2026 up to 1 September.

The 2025 total is 967 movements for the whole year: 176 military, 769 flight-training and 22 private. From 1 January to 1 September 2026 the total is 57, made up of 12 military, 38 flight-training and 7 private. Flight training is what keeps the runway in use.

That pattern is not new. The Senate transport committee that visited on 11 October 2023 recorded 596 flights at the airport for that year, all of them government, training or private, and noted a terminal designed for 1.3 million passengers a year.

The 2018 charter to Don Mueang, and why it stopped

The last passenger service ran between Bangkok Don Mueang and Phetchabun on Mondays and Saturdays. It began on 2 June 2018 and was suspended for good on 18 August 2018, two and a half months later.

The operator was SP Logistics, a Samutprakan company, flying an aircraft leased from Nok Air. The aircraft was Nok Air's; the service was not. Post Today, reporting the closure, described it as a charter rather than a scheduled route in Nok Air's own right.

The stated reason for closing was money: sustained losses on a passenger load well below target, high lease costs for the aircraft, and low-season demand. The Phetchabun Chamber of Commerce was reported at the time as hoping a different investor would restart it, or that it would return as a regular scheduled route.

The terminal finished in 2020 that has never taken a commercial flight

The Department of Airports built a second passenger terminal here between August 2019 and September 2020, designed for 150 passengers an hour. The reason the department gave was that an airline had signalled in 2018 that it planned to fly 70 to 80 seat aircraft to Phetchabun.

The building was finished as COVID-19 spread and the airline's plan was shelved. It has not handled a commercial flight since. MGR Online reported that in January 2022, and the Department of Airports itself then confirmed the building was still unused, while rejecting the charge that the money had been wasted.

The original terminal from 2000 is 11,640 square metres and rated for 500 passengers an hour, against the new building's 150. So the airport has two passenger buildings, the newer of which has never taken a commercial flight, on a site whose whole traffic in 2025 was under a thousand movements.

What could change, and what has not

One firm, dated plan exists, and it concerns air navigation rather than airlines. Thailand's Ministry of Transport has directed Aerothai, the Aeronautical Radio of Thailand company that provides the country's air navigation services, to pilot an Aerodrome Flight Information Service (AFIS) at Phetchabun and Phrae Airport by 2028. This was reported in July 2026, and the pilot is meant as a model for other regional airports.

AFIS is a lower-staffing way of providing flight information at an airport with little traffic. That is a different thing from an airline deciding to fly here.

A second story is older and much less solid. In late 2018 the Department of Airports' director-general, Darun Saengchai, said Chinese airlines, property developers and state enterprises were interested in investing in upgrades at three of the department's airports: Buriram, Phetchabun and Nakhon Ratchasima.

Any deal would have needed a Thai partner under a public-private partnership and a feasibility study approved by the Transport Ministry, and bidding was floated for as early as the first quarter of 2019. No confirmed plan has followed it in the years since. The 2028 automation pilot is dated and named; the 2018 investment interest is neither.

Flying to Phetchabun: use Phitsanulok Airport

Phitsanulok Airport is the nearest airport with scheduled airline service. It is about 98 kilometres from Phetchabun Airport in a straight line and roughly 160 to 167 kilometres by road, which is a drive of about two to two and a half hours.

The Department of Airports' movement records for 2026 show scheduled domestic services at Phitsanulok flown by Thai AirAsia, Nok Air and Thai Lion Air. Scheduled airline movements account for 432 of the 736 recorded there between 1 January and 1 September 2026.

So the trip is a flight into Phitsanulok and then a road leg east. Book to Phitsanulok and put those two to two and a half hours of driving into the plan for the day.