Royal Brunei Airlines

Business Class Perth-Brunei-Dubai-Heathrow. Check-in quick and easy apart from the usual slow pass through security followed by a calm wait in the Malaysian Airlines lounge which Royal Brunei use. All flights on schedule. Meals could be ordered on demand were as good or better than we have had on other airlines. The space between seats on the B767 Brunei to London was excellent and reclined sufficiently for reasonable comfort. However we would have liked the leg rests to rise to a more horizontal position. A320 Perth to Brunei was satisfactory. Business Class lounge in the modern Brunei terminal pleasant and offered a range of nibbles and non-alcoholic drinks. We did buy a small bottle of spirits in Perth Duty Free and were supplied with a suitable bottles of soft drink mixers on the plane. And while you can take the remains with you if you dis-embark in Brunei you can't bring it back on. You can purchase Duty Free wine and spirits in Dubai very cheaply and these are allowed back on the plane as are Duty Free purchases in other airports. There were no individual TV screens in the plane we flew movies were shown on a large screen in the front of the business class cabin.

Auckland to Brunei. Auckland airport is not passenger friendly at 3am and not well set up for such early flights. If like me you are conditioned to check in at least two hours before the flight you will have a long wait in the check-in area before you can go airside. There is not much seating and what there is is largely occupied by sleeping passengers who have got to the airport on the last cheap transport from the city the previous night and who sleep across three or four of the available seats. Immigration and security open one hour before scheduled boarding and Qantas Business Class Lounge at 4am thirty minutes before boarding call. I did not see the other lounges open at all but did not check this out. Immigration and security lines moved fast so if you are flying business class I would recommend not checking in much before 45 minutes before departure or better still take the noon departure even if it means a couple of hours extra journey time for the Brisbane stopover. Maybe others were aware of the early departure discomforts. The business class cabin was only half full. Cabin service on the AKL-BWN the best. Arrival procedures for Business Passengers in Brunei is rapid and I was in my hotel fifty minutes after touchdown.