diff --git a/dev/run-tests.py b/dev/run-tests.py
index a33866784a7de..ea515708124db 100755
--- a/dev/run-tests.py
+++ b/dev/run-tests.py
@@ -405,10 +405,11 @@ def run_scala_tests(build_tool, hadoop_version, test_modules, excluded_tags):
         test_profiles += ['-Dtest.exclude.tags=' + ",".join(excluded_tags)]
 
     # set up java11 env if this is a pull request build with 'test-java11' in the title
-    if "test-java11" in os.environ["ghprbPullTitle"].lower():
-        os.environ["JAVA_HOME"] = "/usr/java/jdk-11.0.1"
-        os.environ["PATH"] = "%s/bin:%s" % (os.environ["JAVA_HOME"], os.environ["PATH"])
-        test_profiles += ['-Djava.version=11']
+    if "ghprbPullTitle" in os.environ:
+        if "test-java11" in os.environ["ghprbPullTitle"].lower():
+            os.environ["JAVA_HOME"] = "/usr/java/jdk-11.0.1"
+            os.environ["PATH"] = "%s/bin:%s" % (os.environ["JAVA_HOME"], os.environ["PATH"])
+            test_profiles += ['-Djava.version=11']
 
     if build_tool == "maven":
         run_scala_tests_maven(test_profiles)