Royal Brunei pushes back Brisbane launch to July

Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA) has pushed back its return to Brisbane until July, a month later than originally intended.

The first Bandar Seri Begawan-Brisbane service is now scheduled to take off on July 10 2019, rather than the previous launch date of June 11 when the flights were announced in January.

“Due to operational reasons, Royal Brunei Airlines will defer the commencement of our scheduled flights between Brunei and Brisbane,” RBA said in a statement on its website.

“Our team will be in touch shortly to offer alternative travel options. We apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

RBA announced in January it would return to Brisbane for the first time since 2011 with four flights a week operated by Airbus A320neo narrowbodies.

The service has been scheduled as an overnight flight from Bandar Seri Begawan departing on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Meanwhile, the return flight takes off from Brisbane in the late afternoon on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

When it finally gets underway, Brisbane will be the second Australian destination in RBA’s network alongside Melbourne, which it serves daily with Boeing 787-8s.

And similar to the Melbourne service, the four times weekly flight to Brisbane was expected to support RBA’s flights to London.

RBA has seven A320neos its fleet. The aircraft, powered by CFM LEAP-1A engines, are configured with 12 business class seats and 138 economy class seats for a total of 150 and earmarked for both growth and the replacement of its A320ceo fleet.

Airbus lists the A320neo as having a range of 3,400nm in a typical two-class configuration of 165 seats. Bandar Seri Begawan-Brisbane is 3,383nm.

The airline recently began flying nonstop between Bandar Seri Begawan and London Heathrow, having previously served the United Kingdom capital with a one-stop routing via Dubai.

RBA was the first to fly the Airbus A320neo to Australia when it used the aircraft temporarily on the Bandar Seri Begawan-Melbourne route in August 2018 while its Boeing 787-8s were unavailable due to engine inspection requirements.

Tables