| James Kon |
ROYAL Brunei Airlines (RB) announced the launching of daily non-stop flights between Brunei and London effective October 28.
The flights will see guests enjoying faster journeys with the round trip travel time reduced by 3.5 hours to and from Brunei and 5.3 hours to and from Melbourne, Australia via Brunei.
Currently, the RB flight between Brunei and London has to transit through Dubai which takes around 17 hours. With the introduction of the new direct daily service to London, the Brunei national carrier will cease operating the Dubai-London route. Instead, RB will continue to provide the vital links to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries via Dubai, offering a weekly four times Brunei-Dubai-Brunei service from October 29.
Details about the airlines’ latest milestone were shared by RB Chief Executive Officer Karam Chand during a press conference held at the Royal Brunei Recreation Club yesterday.
Also in attendance were Executive General Manager (Commercial) Martin Aeberli and Executive General Manager (Operations) Captain Saiful Bahrin bin Bahar.
“The introduction of RB’s non-stop flight to London Heathrow will be a significant milestone as for the first time Brunei and England will be seamlessly connected by a direct air link,” said Karam Chand.
With the strong cultural, economic and political ties between the two countries, it is only natural to provide the seamless non-stop connection. The through flight via Dubai has served us well; however with the demand for more direct routing from our guests, it becomes an important commercial imperative to provide that,” he noted.
“With the latest move, RB will be able to cut journey time significantly for passengers flying from Brunei to London, from London to Brunei as well as from Australia to London via Brunei. We are giving a competitive and compelling reason for Australian customers to fly RB,” the CEO said.
An increasing number of customers had been expecting a non-stop flight for the last 10 years, and in a very competitive market, RB cannot afford to ignore this, he said, adding that “people want non-stop products at competitive prices. The upgrading of the runway last year has allowed us to carry full load of customers with fuel required to fly a 14-hour flight”.
According to the CEO, the approximately 14-hour flight will have the very best in inflight service, entertainment (1,000 entertainment options) and guest-friendly features of B787 Dreamliner such as lower cabin altitude, less noise and turbulence to help reduce jet lag.
“The non-stop flights will also be an enabler for increasing tourists from the UK and Europe. We have had a record 2017 for visitor arrivals and the initiatives such as the London direct, additional Seoul flights, China charter flights and the to-be-announced new markets will play a pivotal role in getting half a million visitors to our shores by 2021,” said Karam Chand.
“By adding more non-stop products and seats, we believe that we can significantly increase the number of visitors from the UK and Europe. Europeans would love to visit Brunei,” he said.
“With these changes, RB has also updated its schedule for its Melbourne flights to cater for better connections within its long-haul route network. These schedules are subject to slot clearances and government approvals,” the CEO added.
On direct flight to Beijing, he explained, “We announced last year that we will operate a direct flight to Beijing. At that time, there were indications that we will get the slot, but unfortunately, we didn’t. We are still working on this, and if everything goes smoothly, we will be able to fly to Beijing in December this year. If not, we are targeting to fly to the brand new airport named Beijing Daxing International Airport which China is currently building as a fallback option next year.”
Touching on the new Airbus A320neo arriving in Brunei Darussalam, Karam Chand said, “We will receive the first aircraft this week. With the new aircraft, we will be operating more services. We will be expanding our destinations, creating more connectivity with other cities to bring in more visitors to the country. This will in turn create multiplier effects in the economy like more businesses for hotels, taxis, restaurants and others,” the CEO said.
The post RB announces direct daily flight to London appeared first on Borneo Bulletin Online.