The airline was established as Varan Air-Siam on 15 September 1965 by Prince Varanand, who was the major shareholder at the time.

[2] Operations started in 1970 using Douglas DC-4 equipment, initially flying the Bangkok−Hong Kong route as a freighter service.

[2] Following an agreement with Overseas National Airways for the wet-lease of a Douglas DC-8-63 and operational assistance from Trans World Airlines,[3][4] scheduled passenger services started in March 1971 (1971-03) serving Bangkok, Honolulu, Tokyo and Los Angeles.

[2] All these services were suspended in January 1972 (1972-01); the Bangkok–Hong Kong sector was reactivated in May the same year with a leased BAC One-Eleven and extended to Tokyo seven months later, in December 1972 (1972-12), operated with a Boeing 707.

[8] Rights for the routes the airline intended to deploy the A300s on were never granted, and the A300B2 was returned to the lessor just a year after it was incorporated into the fleet.