PB Air

Updated 12th Aug 2026

PB Air was a small Bangkok airline owned by Boon Rawd Brewery, the company that brews Singha. It began as a private shuttle for brewery staff, flew charters from 1997 and ran scheduled services from February 1999. It suspended all flights in November 2009, and the closure took effect with the Thai authorities on 21 December 2009.

What was PB Air, and who owned it?

Boon Rawd Brewery, founded in 1933 and the first brewery to open in Thailand, set the airline up in 1990. It was started by the brewery's president, Piya Bhirom Bhakdi, and named after him. For its first years it carried brewery staff and nobody else.

A charter licence followed in 1995 and flying began in 1997. Scheduled services started in February 1999, in alliance with Thai Airways International, Bangkok Airways and Air Andaman. PB Air also ran a frequent flyer scheme called Saen Sabai.

Where did PB Air fly from in Bangkok?

From 1990 to 2006 its Bangkok base was Don Mueang Airport, and from 2006 until it stopped it was Suvarnabhumi Airport.

PB Air's destinations

Its scheduled domestic network was small. Its provincial domestic destinations included Buriram, Lampang, Nakhon Phanom, Nan, Roi Et, Sakon Nakhon, Mae Sot and Mae Hong Son.

At various points it also served bigger airports such as Chiang Mai and Phuket. Abroad it ran scheduled services to Da Nang in Vietnam from 2007, with Luang Prabang in Laos and Nyaung U in Myanmar also on its international list.

What PB Air flew then is no guide to what flies to those towns now. Nan is the clearest case: in the ten years after PB Air left, the airport saw Nok Mini, Solar Air, Happy Air, Kan Air and Wisdom Airways come and go. Buriram had been through two other airlines before PB Air took it on in 2005.

The aircraft PB Air flew

Across its 19 years PB Air used a Dornier 328, three Fokker F28-4000s, a Boeing 767-300, two Embraer ERJ 145 LRs and two ATR 72-500s. They were not a fleet it held at once. The two ATR 72-500s, leased from Bangkok Airways, were what it was flying at the end.

When did PB Air stop flying, and why?

The end came in two stages, over November and December 2009. FlightGlobal reported that Bangkok Airways took its two ATR 72-500s back at the end of October 2009, and that two replacement Saab 340s from the lessor AeroCentury did not arrive because PB Air judged their condition unacceptable. With the ATRs gone and no replacements, it suspended every flight in November.

In December the owner announced that the airline would not restart, citing heavy losses. The closure took effect on 21 December 2009, with the company licence surrendered to Thailand's Department of Commerce and the air operator's certificate due to go back to the Department of Civil Aviation.

What this site holds on PB Air now

PB Air is listed here as no longer operating, and no route page on this site carries a PB Air flight. For the towns above, the airport pages linked here are the place to start.