Two for the price of one.
Hello and welcome to another Flight Report!
This FR will cover the last flights of this series and 2024 going from Brunei to London. Why did I say 'flights' (plural)? That's because this is technically 2 flights. Royal Brunei flies this route with a 2-hour stopover in Dubai, making it two 8-hour flights with a 2-hour stop in between. This explains the 18-hour flight time you see at the top. I'm condensing everything into one FR as there aren't enough photos/content to justify having two. Despite the incredibly long trip time, this flight will be flown 100% in darkness (thanks Winter!).
As for price, I paid ¥2126 ($293/€282) single flying PKX-BWN-(DXB)-LHR, which is a pretty good deal considering how much flying is involved. On top of that, a 25kg checked luggage is included in the price.
Flight routing
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- 6Royal Brunei | Economy | Brunei (BWN) → London (LHR) | Boeing 787-8
I aim to offset all of my CO2 emissions from flights. All emissions are calculated using the ICAO Carbon Emissions Calculator and I will be funding projects approved by The Gold Standard.
Brunei International Airport (BWN)
You join me in the departures lobby right after coming off my flight from Beijing.
You can see the A320neo (V8-RBC) that brought me here. Unfortunately, the view is terrible because of the corridor that separates departures and arrivals.
There are a few duty-free stores and restaurants but aside from that, it's a pretty small terminal.
The First Flight
Boarding started late as the aircraft had a 2-hour delay from Dubai - I find it crazy how tight the turnaround time is after an 18-hour trip from London. Although checking FR24, it appears that she parks in London for around 10 hours before heading back.
Photo of the cabin.
IFE and tray table.
Legroom is pretty good.
On each seat is also a pillow…
… and blanket.
View out of the window - it's gonna be a very dark and boring 18 hours with (almost) nothing to see outside.
A travel prayer is played right before departure. Like its neighbor Malaysia, Islam is the state religion of Brunei with around 80% of the population being Muslim.
Takeoff around 50 minutes late.
Shortly after, dinner is served.
The options were chicken or beef. I went with chicken. It was chicken in soy sauce with rice and sweetcorn. There was also a sponge cake, a green pea salad, and a bun. It's a very nice meal, including the salad (which is quite rare haha). Also, they served Coke with ice, which isn't too common these days.
After that, I slept for around 5 hours, briefly waking up to take some photos of the IFE.
Unfortunately, this system is noticeably slower than what is on their new A320neos with an older UI. It's quite annoying to use, especially as it takes ages to load and scroll. As for the content, there's a wide variety of movies and TV shows including a kids section. It's amazing content-wise, which also explains the long loading times.
Also, the USB port doesn't work, which is pretty sad for an 18 hour flight.
There's also a non-interactive map.
Somewhere around Western India.
Nothing to see during descent but here we are, on final approach into Dubai.
Welcome to the UAE! We arrived around 40 minutes late.
Dubai International Airport (DXB)
Most international airlines use Terminal 1 at DXB (including Royal Brunei) - T2 is for LCCs like FlyDubai, and T3 is the main Emirates terminal. We've got two hours here before heading to London. All passengers have to go through transfers/security like a normal layover.
Security took around 20 minutes.
And here's the duty-free area on the other side.
Like Abu Dhabi, it's laid out like a mall. I've heard people describe Dubai as a massive Westfield (an Australian/UK Shopping Center company) and honestly, they're not wrong.
It's also very busy, despite it being midnight.
And here are the gates. The ones for the UK are blocked off, meaning that people have to either sit away from their gate or sit on the ground.
And here are the departures for the morning/night.
Our flight (BI97) is directly under another British Airways flight to London, although that one will depart on time.
The Second Flight
Boarding started 30 minutes late and here's the obligatory IFE/tray table shot. This is the same seat as my first flight.
Pushback with a Kam Air Airbus A340-300 (YA-KME) heading to Kabul (KBL) in Afghanistan. That's not a plane you see every day!
A terribly grainy photo of Terminal 3 with all the A380s and Boeing 777s.
Bye bye Dubai!
Shortly after takeoff, the crew handed out a midnight snack.
The choice was Chicken Tikka or Margarita pizza. I picked the former, which was very nice.
After sleeping for most of the flight to Dubai, I didn't sleep for any of the 2nd leg. I watched a few films, taking periodic glances at the dark void out of the window… until I noticed some crazy lights above Egypt.
I should mention that this flight was taken on the 5th of October 2024, a few days after a major escalation of the conflict around Israel. Because of this, we flew west through Saudi Arabia and Egypt, rather than going through Iraq and Turkey as normal.
This is likely the capital city of Cairo. Alexandria can also be seen in the photo above.
This longer routing is likely the cause of the delays on this flight.
After that awesome lightshow, the rest of the flight went by pretty uneventful with clouds covering most of Europe.
Around 2 hours before landing, the crew came around with breakfast.
It was a standard breakfast with eggs, sausages, tomatoes. A croissant and fresh fruit is served. I also picked apple juice, which came with ice. The ice is nice, but I've never had it before with juice, which was an interesting first for me. ;) Aside from that, it's a very nice meal - the catering on this trip have been amazing.
Descending into London with the sun firing up the horizon.
Welcome to a wet, dark, and gloomy London! We arrived 1 hour late.
London Heathrow Airport (LHR)
Royal Brunei uses Terminal 4 here at LHR, which is the Skyteam/Middle East terminal.
Immigration took 10 minutes thanks to the automatic barriers and here's baggage reclaim - morning tend to be the busiest time for T4 with all the long hauls coming in from the Middle East.
And here's arrivals landside.
That concludes this mammoth 18-hour Flight-Report. Thanks for reading this extra-long FR, and I'll see you in the next one!
Thanks for sharing. Looks like a great flight though the screen might have been a bit better on the A320. Did they only have one meal service on the BWN-DXB leg?
Hi VM. Yup, it was just the one meal on the first leg. Thanks for reading!
Ok thanks, seems like they could have had a snack at least since it's a long flight even to Dubai, I guess it was ok since there was a post-DXB departure snack
Oof that's a loooong flight. I can understand that the break in DXB is actually nice to be able to get out and stretch for a bit. I guess if it were operated nonstop it would be something like 15-16h long, which would be rough to do in one go in Economy. Luckily Royal Air Brunei seem to have a very nice Economy product between the good legroom and IFE and the nice meals.
Indeed, and it's even crazier that we had a Flight-Report on that flight last week!
Wonderful report as always! Thanks for sharing!