We demonstrate the characteristics of photonic crystal lasers fabricated by air hole retained regrowth using metal-organic vapor-phase epitaxy based on an organic arsenic source [tertiary-butyl arsine (TBAs)]. TBAs has the advantage of high decomposition efficiency compared with AsH3, which enables us to achieve a unique air hole shape under the crystal regrowth. We demonstrate that photonic crystal lasers with an area of $200 \times 200~\mu \text{m}^{2}$ exhibit single-mode lasing with a low lasing threshold of ~0.5 kAcm−2. The effect of the unique shape of the air holes obtained by the TBAs-based regrowth on the laser performance is discussed using coupled-wave theory.