Royal Brunei Airlines celebrate a return to Brisbane

10 July 2019, 2:02 PM

Royal Brunei Airlines (RB) marked a new milestone as it celebrates the return of its non-stop services to Brisbane, Australia on 10th July 2019.

An official launch was held to commemorate the milestone at the new Collaboration Hub in RB Campus. Present as the guest of honour was Yang Berhormat Dato Seri Setia Dr Awang Hj Mohd Amin Liew Bin Abdullah, Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of Finance and Economy II and Chairman of RB Board of Directors.

“RB is delighted to recommence our services to Brisbane for the first time since 2011; this is a very significant milestone that we are incredibly proud of and continues our measured and strategic growth objective that started in 2018. The new direct link will no doubt benefit our guests with a seamless travel as we have very good connections from United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia to/from Brisbane. We hope these will encourage our guests to take advantage of our single and dual destination packages in all the cities we serve. With one the youngest fleet of any airline in the world, our guests will also experience the very best of Bruneian hospitality on-board our all-new game changing A320NEO aircraft,” said Mr. Karam Chand, RB Chief Executive Officer.

“Serving Brisbane will strategically position RB as a key player on the Kangaroo route in the important UK-Australia market. Coupled with our daily non-stop route between London Heathrow and Brunei, it allows us to open an entirely different part of Australia to our guests in addition to our daily Melbourne flight which has already proved very popular. We are delighted to offer our Bruneian, UK and other guests from our expanding route network an additional Australia travel destination where they will find many attractions and activities on offer in Brisbane city and its surrounds,” Mr. Chand added.

RB has aligned its business plans to support economic diversification strategy in line with Brunei Vision 2035. Last year was a record year where tourist arrivals by air grew by 7.4 per cent year-on-year from 258,955 in 2017 to 278,136 visitors in 2018. In 2018, the number of tourist arrivals from Australia increased by 12.8%. The reintroduction of RB’s direct flight to the third largest city in Australia is projected to boost visitor numbers from Australia to Brunei further and help RB achieve the national objective of delivering 500,000 visitors to our shores by 2021.

A celebration dinner was also held in Brisbane at Brisbane City Hall on 11th July 2019 to commemorate the resumption of Brunei-Brisbane services. Present as guest of honour was His Excellency Zakaria Ahmad, High Commissioner of Brunei to Australia, alongside guests from Brisbane Airport Corporation and Brisbane travel agencies.

RB’s four times weekly flights to Brisbane will be operated using RB’s new fleet of A320neo aircraft as follows: