Royal Brunei Airlines Review

Overall Rating

Not really any. The price was competitive. The staff were ok.

Flight cancelled with no explanation. Alternative arrangements quite unsatisfactory.

I booked a return flight from London to Sydney through STA Travel for Royal Brunei Airways and it was a disaster from start to finish. The original itinerary was to fly from London to Brunei Brunei to Sydney with a 12 hour break between flights in Brunei. I thought it was quite odd to have such a long break between connecting flights without offering accommodation as has been the case when I flew to Sydney with Air Japan and Korean Airways both of whom put me up in nice hotels on the return journey. Nevertheless I booked a hotel for myself to stay in Brunei which was reasonably cheap and I explained I only needed it for the day. The first taste of things to come was when I arrived at Heathrow and noticed that my flight on the information screen said "Brunei Via Dubai". I had no idea that there was a stop off in Dubai at all and thought it strange that it had not been mentioned in the original itinerary. The stop off was just over an hour but it must have added an extra hour or two to the length of the flight in terms of flying time which was lost. Then when I arrived in Brunei I was relieved I had booked a hotel when I saw how shabby and bare the airport was with little amenities. I slept all day in the hotel and returned to the airport that night at 9pm ready for my flight to Sydney at 11pm only to be told that the Sydney flight had been cancelled. We weren't offered any explanation whatsoever and were told we would be flown to Manila where we would spend the night. So we flew 2 hours to the Phillipines where we had to offload our luggage again and endured an hour long coach journey to a grotty hotel where we had only 4 hours sleep before we had to get up again and get the coach back to the airport. We eventually boarded the plane to Sydney at 9am and arrived in Sydney 10 hours later than scheduled. Not once did anyone explain why our flight had been cancelled or offered an apology.
It doesn't end there. I contacted STA Travel to change my return journey home and they informed me that Royal Brunei had cancelled the Sydney route and would be making alternative arrangements with other airlines but they didn't know anymore than that at that time. I have contacted STA Travel twice now about changing my return journey and they said they are still waiting on Royal Brunei getting back to them to put me on a different carrier on an earlier date. It's all been a shambles. As well as that the food was crap.