Thailand's Big Little Airline

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iving at Sukhothai airport is like checking into a five-star resort. Alighting passengers are greeted with fresh orchids, then whisked to a reception hall in a whimsically decorated electric train that wouldn't look out of place in Disneyland. In fact, the whole airport resembles a Disneyfied version of a traditional Thai village. The open-sided buildings?housing baggage claim, reception, tourist information and ground transportation?are supported by massive stone pillars topped with tiled peaked roofs that slope sharply toward the ground. During the two-minute ride from the aircraft, the train passes an organic rice farm dotted with picturesque water buffalo, lotus ponds, statues and sculpted hedges. Enthusiastic tourists snap photos even before they arrive at baggage claim.

Sukhothai's airport is owned and operated by upstart regional carrier Bangkok Airways?which replicates in the air its classy style on the ground. Unlike no-frills European airlines Ryanair and easyJet, or the U.S.'s Southwest, Bangkok Airways offers perks such as hot meals and wine, even on hour-long puddle jumps?not to mention elaborate landing rites like those at Sukhothai. And the service is impeccable. The Swissair-trained staff, both on the ground and in the air, are efficient, helpful and always ready to share a smile. The attendants even remember passengers' names. "This is what flying should be like," says American tourist Karen Richards, between sips of Sukhothai Airport's signature welcome drink of iced lemongrass tea. "It's nice to feel human again, not part of a cattle roundup."

What Bangkok Airways does have in common with the Western regionals is that it also makes money. Despite a slight dip in October, earnings were up 33% last year to $2.7 million. Says CEO Prasert Prasarttong-Osoth: "We've been growing at least 20% a year since we started regular flights."

Those began in 1989, when Bangkok Airways owned just two planes and had nowhere to land them. At the time, national carrier Thai was opening up the skies to competition?provided the competition didn't fly on Thai's routes. Prasarttong-Osoth honed in on the bucolic island of Koh Samui, a 20-hour train and ferry ride away from Bangkok. The lack of an airport wasn't a problem: the former surgeon, who comes from a family construction empire, decided to build his own. He couldn't get financing so he sold one of his family's buildings in downtown Bangkok, where the airline still rents offices, to purchase the land and start construction. Twelve years after completion, Samui Airport garners international accolades for innovative design, and oohs and ahs from arriving passengers.

Genial and plain-spoken, 69-year-old Prasarttong-Osoth attributes the company's success to its focus on tourism?especially to cultural destinations?courting the oft-sneered-at holidaymaker rather than the business traveler. "Tourists travel all week long," he says. "Businessmen are more demanding and can only travel a few days a week. Where's the money to be made in that?" On average, his flights are 75% full, and 93% of those passengers are international tourists. Tourists for whom Prasarttong-Osoth has great plans. As part of his Mekong region tourism development scheme, Prasarttong-Osoth has started building a five-star eco-resort on the spacious grounds of the six-year-old Sukhothai Airport, which is only a 15-minute drive from the 9th century temple ruins of the UNESCO-listed World Heritage site of the same name. The resort, like the airport, will resemble an ancient Thai village, complete with organic farming methods, old-style pottery kilns and traditional silk-weaving studios. "Not only will the tourists be able to visit Thailand's cultural heritage," says Prasarttong-Osoth, "but they will know what it was like to live back in the time when Sukhothai was the cradle of Thai civilization."

This month Bangkok Airways is launching its Mekong World Heritage Tour, linking Sukhothai with the unesco-listed sites of Luang Prabang in Laos, the ancient Vietnamese capital of Hue and the Khmer ruins of Angkor in Cambodia. Travelers can visit all four sites in eight days for about $1,000 including hotels. Or they can purchase individual flights for a customized itinerary. Says Prasarttong-Osoth: "Even those traveling for a short time will be able to get an understanding of this area's incredible history." And get a taste of incredible Bangkok Airways.