After celebrating its 20th anniversary on the route in 2010, Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA) is pondering a move to increase the number of flights it operates to London.
The South-east Asian airline currently flies once a day to Brunei via Dubai, but Riaz Moiz, Vice President of RBA, said: “Hopefully sometime in the future we would like to increase the services from the current daily to possibly more than once a day.”
Speaking to ABTN, he added: “Somewhere down the line we will also be looking at the possibility of operating non-stop services from Brunei to London.”
The airline moved from Heathrow’s Terminal 3 to Terminal 4 in March 2010, where Skyteam has recently launched a joint check-in facility and opened a new lounge.
However, RBA has no plans at the moment to join the Skyteam alliance, or any other, said Moiz, but it “is something we would consider at the appropriate time.”
As to which one, he said RBA would look at all of the existing alliances and see which one provided the “best fit”.
“Obviously it’s also the case where the alliance would like to have Royal Brunei Airlines as part of it. It’s a two-way thing,” he added.
“We do study what is going on as far as the alliance is concerned and I think when the time is right I’m sure we will make the move to want to join the alliance, which ever one it is.”
For 2011, RBA’s focus will be on launching the new four times weekly Brunei-Melbourne route, due to start in March.
RBA hopes to tap into British passengers travelling down under, as well as those from North and South-east Asia.
Moiz said he hopes travellers on the route will also take the opportunity to stop over in Brunei and spend some time there:
“Brunei is a small place compared with the likes of Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. There is a certain beauty attached to being small and I think that is what we like to promote and enhance.
“If you want to shop or you want a big city atmosphere, then obviously Brunei would not be the place for you, but it has its own charm, and we are hoping that people who do fly with us and stop over here will be taken in.”