 Royal Brunei : Royal Brunei Airlines (Malay: Penerbangan DiRaja Brunei, Jawi: ﻓﻧﺭﺑﺎڠن ﺩﻴﺮﺍﺝ ﺑﺮﻮﻧﻲ), or RBA, is the international airline of the Sultanate of Brunei. It is wholly owned by the Government of Brunei and is the flag carrier for the Sultanate of Brunei Darussalam. Its home base is the Brunei International Airport in Berakas, just to the north of the capital city of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan.
History of Royal Brunei
Pre-Independence
Royal Brunei Airlines was established on 18 November 1974 with two Boeing 737s, one of which was put in service for the airline's first flight on 14 April 1975 from the brand new Brunei International Airport to Singapore. Flights to the then British colony of Hong Kong and the city of Kota Kinabalu and Kuching in East Malaysia/Malaysian Borneo also commenced the same day. Early route expansion included services to Manila, Philippines in 1976, and Bangkok, Thailand in 1977.
Royal Brunei acquired a third Boeing 737 in 1980, allowing the airline to reach Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1981 and Darwin, Australia in 1983.
From Independence
After independence from the United Kingdom on 1 January 1984, services commenced to Jakarta, Indonesia on the 3rd of January, thus linking all the other five capital cities of ASEAN to Brunei.
Three Boeing 757 aircraft were purchased in the mid eighties to enable the airline to expand to Taipei in 1986, and Dubai, United Arab Emirates in 1988. In 1990, Royal Brunei began their first flight to Europe when they started services to Frankfurt, Germany, via Bangkok and Dubai. The goal was to serve London and services to London Gatwick Airport commenced in 1990 via Singapore and Dubai. Services were changed to London Heathrow Airport in 1991. 1991 also saw the opening of a route to Perth, Western Australia and to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia via Dubai.
Rapid Expansion
The airline's rapid expansion made it a necessity to sell the 737s and buy Boeing 767 aircraft. The first delivery of the Boeing 767 for Royal Brunei broke a world record when it flew 17 hours and 55 minutes non stop from the Boeing company in Seattle to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya, on its way to Brunei. Seven more 767s were delivered, taking the fleet to eight 767s and two Boeing 757s (One of the 757s were sold off to fund the purchase of the new 767s).
In March 1993, Abu Dhabi was added to the route network and flights to Frankfurt and Jeddah were routed through Abu Dhabi instead of Dubai. Bali was the second Indonesian city to be added to the network in May of the same year. Flights to the third destination in Europe, Zürich commenced in August 1993 via Kuala Lumpur and another new destination Bahrain. This was the fist time RBA has added two cities simultaneously to its network. Before the end of the year, services to Beijing, China (October) and Cairo, Egypt (November) via Kuala Lumpur and Bahrain, were inaugurated. Royal Brunei sold its last Boeing 737-200s to Aloha Airlines of Hawaii in 1993.
The growth of the network continued in 1994. The delivery of two Fokker 50 aircraft were used to start services to Miri and Labuan in East Malaysia of the same year. Flights to Brisbane, Australia and Osaka, Japan commenced the same year in June and December respectively (the Brisbane service was initially routed via Darwin but later upgraded to a nonstop flight). The desire to link all the major Oil and Gas cities on Borneo saw the addition of Balikpapan to the route network in December.
Royal Brunei Airlines Boeing 767-300 landingIn 1995 services began to Kolkata, (Calcutta), India via Singapore and then on towards Dubai. Two Dornier 228s were purchased in the same year and leased to the Malaysian regional carrier Hornbill Airways to connect Brunei by air to Mulu. The service to Cairo was suspended in the middle 1995 due to low passenger traffic.
The F-50s were replaced by the larger and more comfortable F-100 jets in 1996 which fueled expansion to Bintulu. The route to Zurich was suspended in September 1996 to enable Royal Brunei to commence daily services to London Heathrow. Some of the flights to London were routed through Yangon, Myanmar instead of Singapore. Yangon proved to be not economically viable and was dropped from the route the next year.
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