Phrae Airport

Updated 2nd Sep 2026

Phrae Airport (PRH) has no scheduled passenger service. Nok Air's route to Bangkok Don Mueang Airport (DMK) ended on 19 April 2023, and what uses the airport now is flight training, private light aircraft and the occasional government or military movement.

What Phrae Airport is, and where it sits

The airport is just under three kilometres east-south-east of Phrae town centre, on Chohae Road in Tambon Nachak, Amphoe Muang Phrae. It is run by the Department of Airports, part of Thailand's Ministry of Transport, and its International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) code is VTCP. The telephone numbers published for the aerodrome are +66 5451 1184 and +66 5452 2706.

There is one runway, 1,500 metres long and 30 metres wide, surfaced in asphalt. A local rule stops aircraft turning through 180 degrees on the runway surface itself: they have to use the turning pads at either end, to avoid damaging the pavement. The airport is open from 08:30 to 16:30 local time, and the control tower and approach control keep the same hours, so it is shut outside that window.

Phrae is a domestic airport: the aerodrome entry the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand (CAAT) publishes for it records no customs, immigration or health facilities, so an international arrival could not be cleared here.

The facilities table in the same entry lists almost nothing at the airport itself, with hotels and restaurants entered as being in the city and no entry at all against transport, medical facilities, a bank, a post office or a tourist office. For visiting aircraft it lists no fuelling, no hangar space and no repair facilities, which matters to anyone flying in privately.

No scheduled service flies to Phrae now

The Department of Airports publishes flight-movement data for the airports it runs. Phrae's entries for the whole of 2025, and for January and February 2026, which are the only months of 2026 the data covers, contain no scheduled passenger movements. Every one is a training sortie, a private light aircraft, a military, police or government flight, or one of two small charters that carried six passengers each in late February 2025.

Nok Air's own destination list says the same. As of 1 September 2026 Phrae does not appear anywhere on the airline's route map, nor do Lampang or Mae Hong Son, which lost their Nok Air services in the same April 2023 fleet change. No scheduled service by any other Thai airline appears in the Department of Airports data for Phrae in either year.

What happened to the Nok Air service

The route ended for a reason that had nothing to do with Phrae. Nok Air was retiring its 50-seat De Havilland Dash 8-Q400 turboprops. AeroRoutes, which tracks airline schedule changes, listed Phrae among five Dash 8 services the airline was still operating on 19 April 2023.

Nok Air's last flight left on that date, and the airport was left without a commercial operator. In March 2023, business, industry and cultural bodies in Phrae had petitioned the airline to keep the route to Bangkok Don Mueang, describing Nok Air as the only airline running a regular service between Bangkok and Phrae. The withdrawal went ahead as planned.

The plan to lengthen the runway and rebuild the terminal

The Department of Airports has been consulting on a redevelopment of Phrae since November 2021, when it opened the first public hearing on a feasibility and environmental study. The proposal put to that hearing was to widen and lengthen the single runway from 30 by 1,500 metres to 45 by 2,100 metres, with the pavement reinforced to take 180-seat aircraft.

A second hearing in March 2022 set out the rest of it: a new passenger terminal, more car parking, and an apron expanded from 60 by 180 metres, which takes two 80-seat aircraft, to 90 by 185 metres, which would take four 180-seat ones. The same plan raises the aerodrome's ICAO classification from 3C to 4C.

Reports in March 2026 put the project in its budget and land-acquisition phase, with the terminal still in design, construction expected to start in 2027, and land expropriation funding set out across the 2026, 2027 and 2028 financial years. Environmental approval for the project was granted on 10 July 2026, after four earlier rejections. The new terminal is described as being sized for 300 passengers an hour, against a stated 150 now.

In March 2026 an MP for Phrae made the case that a 2,100-metre runway would let five named Thai airlines operate 180-seat aircraft into the province, and the prime minister, asked by an MP to accelerate the project, said he would advance it. That is an argument for what a longer runway would allow, not a commitment from any airline to fly here.

A refurbishment and expansion of the existing terminal building was reported as 97.5 per cent complete on 20 April 2023, the day after the last Nok Air flight, and due to open that September.

Construction on the runway extension has not started: as of 1 September 2026 the CAAT aerodrome entry still shows the runway at 1,500 metres by 30 metres. Reporting on that date described the work in two phases, the first taking the runway to 45 by 1,900 metres inside the existing airport boundary, with a second phase to follow. The same report put the expected start of construction at late 2026 rather than 2027, and the first phase at about 900 days of work.