News

Royal Brunei to serve Melbourne

25 Oct 2010 by BusinessTraveller

European and Asian travellers seeking keenly priced flights to Melbourne, Australia will find another option at their disposal next year.

From March 29, Royal Brunei will begin flying four flights a week between its base at Bandar Seri Begawan (the capital city of Brunei) and Melbourne.

Flights will be operated by a small number of two-class B777-200ERs which Royal Brunei acquired from Singapore Airlines (SIA).

These B777-200ERs used to see service on SIA’s Singapore-Manchester route (before it was upgraded to more modern B777-300ER planes) and today this version of the B777 operates SIA’s services to Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Seating is unchanged from when they last saw service with SIA so expect the older Raffles Class Space Bed seating (disposed 2-2-2) for business class with nine-across seating (3-3-3) in economy class.

Brunei is an oil-rich city state in SE Asia. It receives very few tourists and so these flights are aimed at travellers who will change planes.

Passengers starting their journeys with Royal Brunei at London Heathrow or from one of its numerous Asian cities (these include Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Shanghai) simply transfer flights and continue on to Melbourne.

Royal Brunei currently serves Perth and Brisbane. Melbourne will be its third Australian destination and it means that the carrier will be operating 14 flights a week there.

Although Royal Brunei is a “dry” airline it is understood that cabin staff will allow passengers to bring their own drinks on board for personal consumption when purchased from airport duty-free.

Schedules are:

Brunei-Melbourne