Royal Brunei Pulling Out Of BNE and PER For NW11

[Oliver Gigacz]

Royal Brunei Airlines has announced latest restructuring, which sees the carrier will cancel a total of 5 routes, including pull-out from Australia (EXCEPT Melbourne), New Zealand and Vietnam market, as well as Kuching service cancellations.

Service to Kuching ends in July 2011, while the rest of the markets will be canceled from the launch of NW11.

Details:

Bandar Seri Begawan – Kuching Service CANCELLED from 01AUG11
Bandar Seri Begawan – Brisbane Service CANCELLED from 28OCT11
Bandar Seri Begawan – Perth Service CANCELLED from 29OCT11
Bandar Seri Begawan – Auckland Service CANCELLED from 30OCT11
Bandar Seri Begawan – Ho Chi Minh Service CANCELLED from 30OCT11

Reservations for all routes mentioned above are closed as per 21JUN11 GDS inventory display.

For Australian market, Royal Brunei continues to serve Melbourne 4 times a week with Boeing 777

http://airlineroute.net/2011/06/21/bi-w11cxld/

[Joe Frampton]

If this was the 1st of April, I would chuckle along... but if this true, it seems just mad... Brunei have had a huge presence in the markets for such a long time... that connection to SGN is an A320 what, 3 times a week? Went on it recently and it was PACKED... and the MEL service is brand new... what the? This seems incredible... I guess they must be hurting REAL bad.... ?

[Joe Frampton]

I don't often just reply to my own post... but wow, having been in the industry so long... this is a shame, a real game changer in aviation, but also an indication to what is happening globally in terms of alliances and smaller players getting crushed or sucked up. Brunei have been in Brisbane since 1994, a low cost favourite to the UK before the term "low cost airline" was even invented. Looking at the growth of Air Asia, the potential new "SQ lite", the massive alliances Virgin are doing their best to put in place across the globe. The "restructure" of Brunei is significant. Many of those pax flying in and out of Brunei every day were connecting... and only having MEL in the network down under... ??? Surely our traffic from down here (AKL/BNE/PER..) was a huge part of their pax numbers? I can't quite see how this plan works... but anyway. Quite shocked really. But times change and you have to go with the flow I guess.

[Radi K]

BI cant compete with 2 stops to London when every other airline does it in 1.

Some of their dep times ex BNE and AKL are hideous. The connections have never been the customer friendly.

Sad though. Quite a few aussie pilots.

[Joe Frampton]

Originally Posted by Radi K

BI cant compete with 2 stops to London when every other airline does it in 1.

Some of their dep times ex BNE and AKL are hideous. The connections have never been the customer friendly.

Sad though. Quite a few aussie pilots.

You know once Radi, I might possibly have agreed with you, but Emirates leave Brisbane at 2.45am or something like that, MH and SQ leave at midnight too, and CX sometimes too, and people shuffle out for all those flights... their connections on certain routes were awesome too, although I admit BWN Apt does leave a lot to be desired... The 2 stop thing.... nah, that's not really a bother for many people - the planes were pretty full a lot of the time. It's all about the yield & other complex stuff... and it's a real change of the times.

[David Knudsen]

It is a shame, BI may not have been the quickest way to Europe but they were often the cheapest, especially if you wanted to sit up the pointy end!

[lloyd fox]

Price was the major reason pax used BI and i don't believe MEL will work for them.Too much low cost opposition with AIR ASIA X on the price side and too much opposition with QR,EK,EY to the Middle East,Europe and UK.

Yes Joe i agree.The scheduling works well for them re connections and not being part of a Alliance also plays it part .

Loadings out of BNE currently are in the Seventies with 6 flights a week.

I will watch the BTRE figures for MEL when they come out for the first month to see how they are going but it wouldn't surprise me of a complete pullout of Australia come late October.

Sad indeed.

[Joe Frampton]

Agree Lloyd..... I don't see how 4 x MEL flights a week can fill the pipeline for the onward flights from BWN to London, when they previously took pax out of AKL/BNE/PER onward to London..... unless they are planning some major initiative to get more Asian pax to fly to London instead? Maybe they will be become the new low cost shell for SQ, or some other secret plan... hey, theres something to speculate on.. !

[Brent L]

Shame really. I flew them in 2009 whilst they had BNE-LHR for $2000 in J class, and it was amazing. Recliner seats on the 767 to Brunei, then the sloper types all the way to London. The food was fantastic, and the service was pretty good. The load from DXB-LHR was pretty full, but I don't remember the other loads being as full.

[Oliver Gigacz]

Looks like MEL is staying for a while.

Royal Brunei Airlines starting 10FEB12 is adjusting its operational schedule on 4 weekly Bandar Seri Begawan – Melbourne service, which sees departure times will be unified to mid-day from both Brunei and Melbourne.

Currently the airline operates 2 flights during mid-day and 2 at night time.

Schedule as per 29AUG11 GDS timetable display:

till 09FEB12
BI051 BWN1220 – 2215MEL 777 36
BI053 BWN2200 – 0755+1MEL 777 25

BI052 MEL0140 – 0550BWN 777 47
BI054 MEL1340 – 1750BWN 777 36

eff 10FEB12
BI053 BWN1220 – 2215MEL 777 x236
BI054 MEL1325 – 1735BWN 777 x347

http://airlineroute.net/2011/08/29/bi-mel-feb12/