Early last year I briefly visited Brunei, and also flew Royal Brunei Airlines. They're a unique airline -- in addition to operating some short-haul routes, they operate just three longhaul routes, from Melbourne to Bandar Seri Begawan to Dubai to London. I flew them from Kuala Lumpur to Bandar Seri Begawan (on an A320), and…
Continue reading: Royal Brunei Modifies Longhaul Route Network, Cuts Dubai To London Flight
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Why do they not fly to SYD? Would that not seem logical to funnel both SYD and MEL to LHR?
@Tom W: Its one of the cheapest options out of Australia, and the timing is not terrible. My parents just flew it for that reason.
The four times I’ve taken this routing (MEL-BWN-DXB-LHR), the loads were probably at 60% max across all cabins to DXB. At DXB the plane would completely fill up with Brits coming back from a cheap holiday— same thing the other way. Anecdotal, of course, but based on that it’s surprising to me that they’re cutting the DXB stop, since it seems DXB-LHR was the busiest part of the routing for them.
Also, just being a little bit picky, but this isn’t the only long haul route Royal Brunei flies. They also fly BWN-JED four times a week.
Tom W - as someone else said ,reason people fly Brunei to Europe is low price , not all Australians are wealthy .
Also there is something about their product that older people seem to enjoy - some older couples I've spoke to even seem to appreciate the dry nature of the product! Which a Brit of a certain view of Australians is surprising haha!
They don't need to worry about Sydney; given that Melbourne is projected to become Australia's biggest city by 2030 there is more than enough traffic from MEL to make this route more than viable.
@Aaron - You just drink your own booze which you take on & if sensible bought in duty free. They'll supply the mixers for you if you buy spirits. This is what I did when they operated to BNE many moons ago.