Royal Brunei Airlines
Economy Class (Y)
BI872: KUL-BWN (Kuala Lumpur to Bandar Seri Begawan)
25 January 2018
Airbus A320-200
V8-RBU
Seat 27C
Departure: 12:21PM
Arrival: 02:38PM
Planning
As part of the trip to the region, I wanted to visit Borneo and specifically Brunei. I knew there wasn't a whole lot to do in the small island nation, so I didn't want to overnight there. At the same time, I didn't want to fly MH and backtrack through KUL. I found that BI flies the KUL-MNL route with a 4 hour stop in BWN (on certain days of the week only), which was just enough time to get out of the airport and see a bit of Bandar Seri Begawan. So, I decided to book a one-way economy class ticket for a whopping $210 USD. Online booking was painless, as they use the same back-end system as a number of other airlines. In other words, their IT was quite good for such a small airline.
Check-in
I was unable to issue a mobile boarding pass due to the fact that I was flying a one-way ticket into Manila. My onward flight was booked with CX, but BI had no way of knowing that. As such, I went to the online check-in counter at KUL (very short line) and provided my onward ticket to the agent. She promptly issued my boarding passes and I was off. Security and immigration were a breeze and I was airside in no time.
KUL Airport
My flight departed from the C gates in the large Satellite Terminal, the same terminal my KL flight arrived at. As such, I had to make a short transfer to that building. Unfortunately, the inter-terminal train was down for maintenance, so I ended up taking a short shuttle bus ride to my concourse. It was pretty painless and quick. I even saw two Nesma Airlines 777s parked on the tarmac (somewhat) near the shuttle bus loading point. Don't see those very often.
Nesma 777
V8-RBU
Here's the bird I'd be flying that day.
Expectations
I'll be honest. I had no idea what to expect for this flight. This was my first time flying Royal Brunei and online reviews about the airline are scant to nonexistent. They have a grand total of 10 planes and fly to a whopping 18 destinations.
Boarding
Boarding was fairly organized. Pre-boards went first, then business class, then boarding group A, B, C, etc. They mostly enforced the boarding order and it went smoothly. I've been on AA flights that were less organized. Overall, I was impressed. In addition, the incoming flight was delayed by roughly 30 minutes. Despite that, they were able to turn the plane around very quickly and we departed only 11 minutes late. We ended up arriving at BWN only 8 minutes late, which was pretty impressive. In addition, this flight was fairly full, so that made the quick turn all that more impressive.
Upgrade Bidding
Apparently, BI has an Upgrade Bidding system similar to what CX uses. The site has the same design as CX, so they probably use the same vendor. The minimum bid to upgrade each segment was around $150 USD (roughly $300 total). I didn't feel it was worth the cost for such short flights.
Seats
I purchased a seat with slightly more pitch and it included priority boarding. I believe the cost was around $10 USD. It was worth it. The seats weren't huge, but leg room was more than adequate and the seats were fairly comfortable.
Prayer
The only slightly strange thing was the playing of a prayer prior to takeoff (the Doa Safar) on the overhead screens. I know some ME carriers do a similar thing, but what struck me was how long the prayer took. It was a solid 90 seconds. I believe QR has a pre-flight prayer, but it's very quick. Everyone pretty much ignored it and went about their business, so it really didn't bother me at all.
IFE
There was no IFE system on the plane. I brought my own iPad, so that wasn't an issue. J class pax were issued iPads to watch content on the flight, but Y pax were not. For such a short ride, the lack of an IFE was not a problem. And honestly, I'd prefer no IFE than an IFE system with lousy content. I suspect the IFE content would be pretty sterile, given the fact that BI is majority owned by the Government of Brunei.
Food
This was the really impressive thing. This flight was scheduled for 2hr20min total. Despite that, they provided a full hot meal service. They even had two different entree choices. I was floored. My HKG-TPE flight on CX was of similar length, but the meal service was much less extensive and there was only a single choice of entree and no drinks service. BI gets really high marks here for the meal service. You'd NEVER see this flying Y in the US, even on a 6hr TCON! In fact, I'd say the meal was on par with what is served by BA/AF on TATL flights from the East Coast. Of course, a one-way TATL usually costs a lot more than $210 (especially on BA).
That said, aside from there being a hot meal service, the food was really excellent. The flatware, though plastic, was very high quality and substantial. The meal choices were a chicken green curry and a beef dish (special meals were available if ordered in advance). I went for the chicken and it was very tasty. The curry was flavorful and a bit spicy. There was also a tasty noodle salad, a warm roll and a Kit Kat bar. The drinks were non-alcoholic, of course, but I don't drink so that makes no difference to me. Alas, they didn't have my customary Diet Coke (just Coke Classic), so I had the mango juice instead and it was quite good.
My only issue here was the meal service took almost the entire flight to complete, so I had to wait roughly 90 minutes to use the Y lavatory in the aft, as the aisle was blocked the rest of the time. I tried to use the J lav out of sheer desperation, but I was annoyingly denied by the J class dragon. Pro tip: use the lav before the meal service!
Summary
Before I knew it, we were landing at BWN. I was off the plane and through immigration very quickly. No issues at customs and I was landside maybe 10 minutes after landing. It's a small airport, but it's very efficient. That shouldn't be surprising, since the whizzes at SIN helped design the recent renovations at BWN. My tour guide met me at arrivals and we were off to see the city.