Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn Bhd (RB) (, Jawi: ) is the national flag carrier airline of Brunei Darussalam, headquartered in the RB Campus in Bandar Seri Begawan. It is wholly owned by the Government of Brunei Darussalam. Its hub is Brunei International Airport in Berakas, just to the north of Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei Darussalam.
Formed in 1974, with an initial fleet of two Boeing 737-200 aircraft, serving Singapore, Hong Kong, Kota Kinabalu, and Kuching, Royal Brunei Airlines now operates to 32 destinations in south-east Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Oceania. Its fleet and type numbers increased progressively in the 1990s.
History
Pre-independence
Royal Brunei Airlines was established (as merely Royal Brunei) on 18 November 1974 with two, then new Boeing 737-200s. The airline's maiden voyage was on 14 May 1975 from the then newly built 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) started the same day.
Early route expansion included services to Manila in 1976, and Bangkok in 1977. Three years later, Royal Brunei acquired a Boeing 737-200QC, its third Boeing 737, enabling it to reach Kuala Lumpur in 1981 and Darwin in 1983.
From national independence: 1984–1991
After the independence of Brunei from the United Kingdom on 1 January 1984, services commenced to Jakarta on 3 January, thus linking all five ASEAN capital cities at the time from Brunei: Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, and Singapore.
Three Boeing 757-200s were purchased in the mid-1980s, to enable the airline to expand to Taipei in 1986 and Dubai in 1988. They were also used on existing high-capacity routes to Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, and Kuala Lumpur; after the introduction of the 757, its smaller sibling was phased out. In 1990, Royal Brunei began its first flight to Europe, when services started to Frankfurt am Main via Bangkok and Dubai. Services to London Gatwick Airport (LGW) commenced in 1990 via Singapore and Dubai, and changed to London Heathrow Airport (LHR) in 1991, by which time services were inaugurated to Perth and to Jeddah via Dubai.
Rapid expansion: 1992–1996
With the airline's rapid expansion, the 737s were sold, replaced by the Boeing 767. Before that, 757-200s served the airline between Brunei, the Middle East, and Gatwick.
The delivery of the first Boeing 767 (after a leased 767-200 registered CC-CEX) broke a world record when it flew 17 hours and 22 minutes non-stop from Boeing's factory in Seattle to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Nairobi, on its way to Brunei. Seven more 767s were delivered, taking the fleet to eight Boeing 767s and two Boeing 757s (one of the 757s was sold to fund the purchase of the new 767s).
In March 1993, Abu Dhabi was added to the route network, through which flights to Frankfurt and Jeddah, were re-routed instead of Dubai. Bali was the second Indonesian city to be added to the network in May of the year. Flights to the third European destination, Zürich, commenced in August 1993 via Kuala Lumpur and another new destination, Bahrain. Before the end of the year, the airline was inaugurating services to Beijing (October) and Cairo (November), via Kuala Lumpur and Bahrain, respectively. Royal Brunei Airlines sold its last Boeing 737 to Aloha Airlines.
The growth of the network continued in 1994. The delivery of two Fokker 50s were used to start services to Miri and Labuan in east Malaysia of the same year. Flights to Brisbane and Osaka were also commenced in June and December, respectively; (the Brisbane service was initially routed via Darwin but later upgraded to a non-stop 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.
Also in 1994, services began to Kolkata via Singapore and then on towards Dubai. Two Dornier 228s were purchased in the same year, and leased to the Malaysian regional carrier, Hornbill Skyways, to connect Brunei by air to Mulu Airport. Services to Cairo and Kolkata (via Singapore) were suspended in mid-1995 due to low passenger numbers.
The F-50s were replaced by the larger and more comfortable Fokker 100 (used, from previous owner Swissair) in 1996, which fuelled expansion to Bintulu. The route to Zürich was suspended in September 1996, to enable Royal Brunei to commence daily services to London Heathrow. Some London flights were routed through Yangon and Abu Dhabi, instead of via Singapore and Dubai; however, Yangon proved uneconomical and was discontinued the following year.