Royal Brunei Airlines Boeing 787-8 Economy Class Review

“Goodbye Qantas”, the lady behind me said after we landed in Melbourne.

We’d just flown in from Asia on Royal Brunei Airlines. There was so much space on board that every passenger could lie down across a whole row of seats – and for that privilege, we’d paid significantly less than the cost of a Qantas ticket.

Royal Brunei may not be that well-known in Australia, but it flies Boeing 787 Dreamliners 5x weekly between Melbourne and Brunei’s capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. Beyond Brunei, the airline offers affordable onward connections to destinations across Asia and London.

In this review, find out what it’s really like to fly Royal Brunei Economy Class on the Boeing 787 from Bandar Seri Begawan to Melbourne.

Flight Details

Flight number	BI5
Origin	Bandar Seri Begawan (BWN)
Destination	Melbourne (MEL)
Aircraft type	Boeing 787-8
Class of travel	Economy
Seat number	29C
On-time performance	We arrived on time
Star rating

The route

Flight Cost

I’ll be honest – the main reason that I originally chose Royal Brunei was the price. I needed to get from Seoul to Melbourne, and I paid just AUD410 for a one-way ticket via Brunei. This fare included 25kg of checked baggage, but not seat selection – so I chose to pay a bit extra to select good seats as well.

My first flight from Seoul (Incheon) to Bandar Seri Begawan was on an Airbus A320neo. I had never been to Brunei before, so decided to add a stopover there for a night to break up the trip. The airline did not charge extra to add the stopover. This review covers my second flight, from Bandar Seri Begawan to Melbourne.

For what it’s worth, Royal Brunei offers very competitive pricing between Melbourne and London. Many of the passengers on my flight seemed to be connecting through from the UK.

Airport Experience

My first impressions of Brunei International Airport were very positive. It’s a modern building, and wasn’t at all crowded.

Officially, airport check-in for Royal Brunei flights opens 3 hours before departure. I arrived at the airport around 4 hours before my flight, but that wasn’t a problem at all. To the left of the Premier check-in lounge, Royal Brunei has an “early check-in” desk where you can check in and drop your luggage any time on the day of your flight.

The lady who checked me in was very kind – as were all of the Royal Brunei staff that I interacted with on this trip, in fact. I knew that my flight to Melbourne wouldn’t be full, so asked if there was anyone else sitting in my row of seats. The lady said that there was a passenger in the other aisle seat of my centre row, so she proactively offered to move me to another row where nobody else was sitting. Score!

The Royal Brunei Sky Lounge

Royal Brunei operates two lounges at Brunei International Airport. Its Business Lounge is exclusively for Business Class and Royal Skies Gold passengers. The neighbouring “Sky Lounge” is open to Royal Skies Silver members, and basically anyone else who has Priority Pass or wants to buy access.

The airline heavily promotes its Sky Lounge, and makes it incredibly easy to purchase access. I was even offered the option to add lounge access for around AUD48 during online check-in.

You could buy a 3-hour pass for slightly less through LoungePair (which also offers various discounts to AFF members), but I had access anyway through my Priority Pass membership.

The Sky Lounge is located above the main departure concourse, reachable via a spiral staircase.

The air-conditioned Sky Lounge was a pleasant place to wait for a few hours, with Wi-Fi, multiple different seating areas, and shower cubicles located within the bathrooms. Towels were available at reception.

The buffet had plenty of hot food options, which actually changed during my visit, and even a whole baked fish. Coffee, tea, water and soft drinks were available, but no alcohol. Royal Brunei is a dry airline, so alcoholic beverages were not served on board the flight either.

Boarding

Since this was a flight to Australia, you had to get your carry-on bags checked for liquids, aerosols and gels in order to enter the roped-off gate area. I find this Australian government policy completely ridiculous and outdated, but it’s still required so the airline has to comply. After passing through this check, you have to wait in the gate area until boarding starts – with no toilets or drinking water available.

Boarding was done in groups, starting with Business Class and Royal Skies Silver and Gold members. This was followed by passengers in rows 26-29, and finally rows 30-53.

This was a very lightly loaded flight – more on this shortly – so boarding barely took 10 minutes!

The Hard Product

Royal Brunei has a typical 3-3-3 seating configuration in Economy on its Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. While this means the seats are slightly on the narrow side, the generous legroom makes up for this.

The plane itself was spotless and in good condition, with nice mood lighting.

Royal Brunei 787 Economy seats

What I didn’t realise when the agent moved my seat at check-in was that she’d actually put me in a row of “preferred” seats close to the front of the plane. You would normally need to pay around AU$100 extra to pre-select one of these seats on this route, which are marked as “reserved” and have an inch of extra legroom. (These seats also entitle you to priority boarding.)

I boarded this flight with no particular expectations, so was very pleasantly surprised with the excellent legroom. I had 34 inches of seat pitch at my seat, which is the same as you’d get on the All Nippon Airways (ANA) Dreamliner. Even Royal Brunei’s standard Economy seats have a solid 33 inches of pitch.

For context, when Qantas introduced the Boeing 787 into its fleet, it made a point about how good the legroom is in Economy. Qantas offers 32 inches of seat pitch on this aircraft type.

My cloth-covered seat on Royal Brunei had a decent amount of padding and an adjustable headrest, making it relatively comfortable for the 6.5-hour flight.

In-flight entertainment & Wi-Fi

Royal Brunei offers seat-back entertainment screens on all its planes. I actually preferred the entertainment system on the Airbus A320neo I’d flown the day before, as it had a better user interface (UI) which made it easier to find content. Nonetheless, the in-flight entertainment system on the Boeing 787 was stocked with plenty of movies and music playlists, as well as a selection of TV shows. And of course, there’s a moving map.

Although Royal Brunei offers Wi-Fi on its Airbus A320neo fleet, this doesn’t extend to the Boeing 787 fleet. Wi-Fi was not available on this flight.

The Soft Product

Pillows were provided on every seat, and the friendly cabin crew distributed headphones before take-off. Blankets were available too, but I had to ask for one. Toothbrushes and toothpaste were provided in the bathrooms.

Before take-off, a prayer and no-nonsense safety video were played. This was followed by a video explaining how to recline your seat and lock the toilet door in a level of detail I haven’t seen on other airlines.

Soon after our punctual take-off, the crew distributed arrival cards for Australia and began the dinner service.

Food & drinks

The meal service began with peanuts and a choice of drinks from the trolley. Soft drinks, apple juice, orange juice, tea, coffee and water were available.

There were two hot meal choices for dinner, which arrived soon after. Rather than the chicken meatballs with potato, I opted for the Thai beef curry with rice. The curry was tasty but unfortunately the beef was quite chewy.

The main meal came with a potato and chicken salad, bread roll with butter, and chocolate sponge cake. The plastic knife and fork reminded me of the reusable cutlery you might take camping. The crew also offered a couple more rounds of drinks.

The crew were hospitable and made everyone feel welcome on board. And maybe it was just my imagination, but all the other passengers on board were also really nice! Everyone was respectful, said “please” and “thank you”, and just seemed to be in a generally good mood. Perhaps the light load helped, but this was so refreshing.

Around 90 minutes into the flight, with all the rubbish cleared from the dinner service, the crew switched off the cabin lights and people settled in to sleep or watch movies. The lights remained off until 35 minutes before landing, as there was no breakfast service on this flight. I did see flight attendants deliver snacks including a hot cup of instant noodles to a couple of passengers who asked, but that was all.

The lack of any sort of pre-arrival snack surprised me a bit. But given the 5am arrival time, I would personally prefer extra sleep over being woken for breakfast anyway.

Are Royal Brunei flights to Melbourne always this empty?

One of the things that made this flight excellent was the lack of passengers on board. I was able to lie down across a row of seats and nap for a couple of hours during the overnight flight, which was fantastic.

Of course, not every Royal Brunei flight is going to be this empty! Nonetheless, the publicly available statistics provided by the Australian government show that Royal Brunei flights to Melbourne are consistently less full than flights between Australia and Southeast Asia on other airlines. This means there is a higher chance of an empty seat beside you!

On average, in 2025, 62% of seats on Royal Brunei flights from Brunei to Melbourne were occupied. In the other direction, 59% of seats were filled last year. That’s well below industry average load factors (the percentage of seats filled).

That said, the load factors on this route appear to be highly seasonal. On average, in June 2025, Royal Brunei filled only 38% of seats from Bandar Seri Begawan to Melbourne. That’s a similar occupancy to what I experienced on my flight in June 2026… but this is an off-peak month. In July 2025 – during school holidays and the peak season for Europe-Australia travel – Royal Brunei filled 84% of seats on the same route.

As a point of comparison, in June 2025, Qantas filled 75% of its available seats from Singapore to Australia, 85% from Bangkok to Sydney, 89% from Manila to Australia, and 94% of seats from Indonesia to Australia. So, indeed, the chances of an empty seat beside you are statistically much lower on Qantas.

Basically, Royal Brunei flights are sometimes full during school holidays and peak travel periods. At other times, they are often less than half full. That’s not great news if you’re in charge of the airline’s finances, but it’s a boon if you’re a passenger!

Oh, and Royal Brunei offers a very reliable service, too. Its flight to Melbourne has not been cancelled a single time in at least the past year. It’s almost always on time, too.