Royal Brunei Airlines Reviews 

Poor cabin service and a disappointing transit experience

My recent Melbourne–London journey via Brunei was very disappointing. Cabin crew were largely absent between meal services, with a gap of around ten hours between meals in my experience. No snacks, water or other drinks were proactively offered during that time.

At breakfast, only one drink, such as orange juice, was offered, with no tea or coffee. After serving, the crew withdrew behind the curtain, returning about half an hour later to collect the trays. Passengers who requested snacks or drinks were met with what appeared to be irritated looks. The service felt rushed and reduced to the bare minimum.

The in-flight entertainment was poor, and the headphones did not work properly, making an already long journey less comfortable.

The transit experience in Brunei was equally disappointing. Food options were very limited, and the lounge buffet was particularly poor. The chicken curry contained numerous broken bone fragments, the bread was dry and seemed stale, and the rice appeared overcooked. The other dishes looked unappetising, as though they had been sitting out for some time. Shelves in the lounge café were visibly dusty.

Both onboard and in the lounge, staff often appeared disengaged, standing around with little eye contact or initiative. Overall, this was a poor experience for an airline that promotes the quality of its service.

The outward journey from London to Melbourne was equally disappointing, with similarly poor cabin service.

I booked 2 return tickets from Melbourne, Australia, to Dubai. I received an email from Brunei Airlines that my departure date has been cancelled, and the refund will be between 4 to 6 weeks. After 7 weeks, I gave them a call to say that the money hadn't been refunded, they said with in 3 to 4 days. After 8 weeks, I called again to ask for the money they said will do it as soon as possible. They hold my money I need it to buy another ticket and the time is running to attend a wedding overseas

Well I've had flown to the Philippines, 6 times now there and back in the last 3 years, I've used different airlines, without mentioning their names, to be fair, but I would like to mention Royal Brunie Airlines, because so far they are the best airline that I've ever travelled with, and made my very long haul flight, totally perfect in every way, first of all the planes I travelled in lots of leg room, very very spotless clean, and very polite air hostess, very calming atmosphere, and give me a kind of excitement that I'd never experienced before with any other airline, although im obviously excited and looking to forward to seeing my wife who lives in the Philippines,but just flying with Royal Brunei give me such a good experience that I'm booking them again very soon, and are looking forward to fly with them again

Went to their office in Centurion Building Dubai, UAE frustrated with cancelled flight. The staff named Tareq was there and was very accommodating since we came. He answered all our queries and provided a great solution to the problem. Customer service was great. Keep it up.

Great airline clean planes great service. No complaints whatsoever.

I was calling for reschedule my friends fly ‘Nd the service was excellent!,during the awful phone connection, Shannon still called me back and guide me how to sort out my problem. Warmth and thougtful service definitely worst 5 start review .

Horrible experience at DXB - check in staffs were unprofessional as if they were doing work at the cafe, ongoing chats and late staff arrivals while queue gets longer but don't even care. The handling staff doesn't even allow ticketing with verified visas, residential ID and credit card, yet insisting the evidence of flight ticket back to home country. Absolutely horrendous! Worst attitude and customer service ever.

The flight got torn pillows and dirty blankets, obviously didn't do the cleaning enough (or at all). Disgusting fleet cleanliness.

Flight attendants were super friendly and they were attentive to passengers, which I was glad to see. Food quality was average but flight attendants frequently brought snacks and drinks.

Booked a last-minute flight to Australia to go and see my mother who is turning 90 and whose health is failing. Had to organise an emergency passport to make the trip. Booked the flight last minute for £780. Went to Heathrow on Friday 21 June and got there 35 minutes before check-in closed. Took some documents and passports out of my bag and was organising myself to go to check-in. The person who was sitting next to where I had my stuff out packed up and left, accidentally taking my passport I assume.

Panicked I retraced my steps to see if I had dropped it, but no luck! Asked in stores, ticketing desk and at security, and One advised me to go to the departures security line.
It was there! Took a minute or two to retrieve it, in the meantime at 15:12 I got to the desk and no one was there. It's only 2 minutes before they are meant to close, no other representation for royal Brunei anywhere. I asked the airline staff next to them and they said
"They just left, let me check, oh yeah, the flight is still open to check-in for 2 minutes but as no Brunei staff to help they can't help me. If I didn't have luggage to check they might have but..." That was so annoying. Tried urgently to call the London office! London office CLOSED
Tried the Brunei office. Massively long wait on the phone.
Tried their What's App group. They read the message, no reply for 8.75 hours!!!!!! What kind of company is this?
So missed my flight through unfortunate circumstances and the airline closing check-in early!
Tried to get Royal Brunei to allow me to transfer to the next flight on Sunday but they wanted £1589 to do so
Tried to get a refund. Hell no!!! They kept it all even though I had explained all this.
And the fact I had some circumstances that warranted compassion or at least an act of Sadaqah as it is a Muslim career.
Pious men of faith do not, run this company. Their god is green and spendable.

So I missed my mother's 90th birthday Lost all the money, due to some other circumstances can't afford to rebook anytime soon and have been told I must be there soon or it will be too late to see my mother again. This is devastating and this is what Royal Brunei do to people in desperate circumstances.

They don't care about their passengers, we are only $$$$ to them and if they can take money for nothing they will 100% do that to you.
Be aware of this and I truly urge you to click on a better airline that is more likely to have compassion and help people out in such situations

Avoid this 1-star carrier (morally)
AVOID!

Note to Skytrax award is this the way a 4-star airline behaves? Consider this during your next rating review.

Worst Airline Ever exist Wasted Our time.
Flight delayed for 8 hours for no Specific reason Just sending us all around the airport from gate 11 to 14 and then to 7
Do Not Fly With this Airline

Taken business class with RB multiple times for both long and short haul

The business class is below average comparing to services and amenities offered by Business class on other airlines such as Singapore airline and KLM. Not value for money, unless it is really significantly cheaper. Expect to only enjoy the flat bed.

Below are somethings that will really make a difference in the experience:

1) Cheap quality headphones that are uncomfortable. Most airlines are offering noise cancellation headphones (bose) in their business class. SIA is providing noise cancellation headphones even in premium economy class.
2) No wifi on board. This is really a deal breaker for business travellers
3) Poor Inflight entertainment system - lack of movies and songs selection. There was once the inflight entertainment wasn't working for my entire flight to London. I wasn't offered any compensation. Flight stewardess just mentioned they had reset the system, and they can't move me to another seat cause it is full.
4) Unable to view and order in flight food menu on RB App. Singapore airlines provides business class to pre select and cook to order. On top of that, menu is presented on in flight entertainment screen on every flight.
5) Lack of variety in food menu. There is no menu provided on paper or on screen to enable you to order snacks. the stewardess only asked once after boarding the flight if we would like any snacks. How am I expected to know what is available?
6) taste of food & presentation is poor. It seems to be getting worse. The salad leaves looks wilted and dead.
7) No direct aisle access for window seats. You would need to climb over another passenger inorder to access the aisle if ypi are seated at the window.

In addition to that, the customer service skills are non existent. Once encountered a flight cancellation which was not even communicated via an official email or text. Instead, i stumbled across it via Instagram of another friend's repost. Just ridiculous that flight updates is done via Instagram. Not everyone has an instagram account. There was no response when feed back was provided. The RB app is useless when it comes to live updates of flights and airport. Serious improvement needed, look at KLM and SQ app. Even budget airline like ryan air and easy jet has better apps.

B1 0979
What is happening.????? Children are crying screaming its been more than 24hrs stuck in DXB airport. No update. No staff to talk to!!!! Then you will claim its not in your hand? Shame!!!! You kept promising to for a hotel stay but NOTHING!!! NO UPDATE!!!

*5 star is accounting for value*

Went London Heathrow to Dubai and back again, both economy. 2 adults, 1 child, return, £1200. That included meals, drinks and 25kg luggage per person.

Online check-in didn't work, but I was aware of that before hand. We got to airport 3 hours before flight, was a breeze at Heathrow, instant check in at the desk. But flight to Dubai was half empty. Coming back to London was only about 10 minutes checking in, on a packed flight.

The food was better than expected, similar to Emirates. The cabin crew were very professional, the ladies looked very elegant and exotic.

You get a blanket, a pillow and earphones. And toothpaste and a toothbrush in the toilets.

There is an Islamic prayer before take off, but the volume was very low. I could barely hear it.

*This seat info is for the Boeing Dreamliner*

We had extra leg room, unofficial 'exit' seats on the outbound flight (I'll add a tip for that at the end of review) they were lovely. And normal seats on the inbound flight. The normal seats had enough leg room, but the 'exit' seats were great. The one downside is the seats were a little hard. But 7/8 hours was ok. I don't think I'd like to fly from Australia to UK in those seats.
My tip for the 'exit' seats is choose row 27 or 42, seats D, E and G (There is no F). They are 3 in their own row in the middle of the plane. I think they are usually for people travelling with babies, as they had space for the cribs that go on the wall in front. But on both flights, the crib wasn't there. Those were excellent seats.

All in all, for the money we paid, if you can get a similar good value deal, I'd definitely recommend. I've flown low budget long haul before (Norse to USA) and you don't get food or luggage with their base price.

Royal Brunei Whatsapp chat agent has extremely limited customer service skills and didn’t offer good advice. My husband was hospitalised for two weeks for Covid in Rome. I was alone in a foreign country and having fever. I was extremely stressed and having a headache! I requested a refund for my flight from DXB to BWN but the chat agent asked me to email their call centre. The call centre ignored my emails. The agent could have advised me to reschedule my flight so it will remain active and I could change it for other destinations or transfer to another traveller by paying a fee. They were absolutely unempathetic. Ill trained agent and unresponsive call centre!

Flew with RB through Opodo to Adelaide, Australia, wish I hadn’t!!
Flight info said 2 stops, Brunei and Melbourne, we had an extra stop at Dubai, got off the plane was marched around the whole airport and then straight back on the plane! Joke!
The flight crew were great, the plane was old, uncomfortable, and in a state of ill repair. So uncomfortable that we barely slept and I could hardly walk when I got off it.
We got to Brunei at about 1am, had to take off all cabin bags including a bottle of vodka bought in the Uk, there was a small coffee shop and nothing else open. I tried to talk to airport staff about upgrading for the remaining fight to Aus but no one wanted to even talk to me.
Then to top it all off, when we tried to re board the plane the vodka was confiscated by a security guard who made it sternly clear I wouldn’t be taking the vodka with me! I could understand if I was trying to take it into Brunei but obviously I wasn’t.
I’ve emailed Royal Brunei and the best I got was “sorry you lost your vodka”.
Don’t risk your money, go with a real airline and don’t book through Opodo, they’re just as bad.

Used them a couple of times. Most recently it was a bit of a necessity as the major airlines flying to the UK were so costly. Think it was $2500 less for 5 tickets than the nearest major. Brunei airport isn’t great so keep your stop overs to a minimum. Food is ok. No alcohol but I always have to drive the other side anyway, so doesn’t bother me.

Amazing experience. Great, attentive and friendly staff, smooth travel experience - I'll choose them next time

I booked my trip this week to Australia thro a travel agent and I had to arrange wheelchair assistance and seats by contacting royal brunei customer services
I e mailed them and received a quick reply and within 24 hours it was all sorted out I cannot fault them so far I will leave another review after my flight in september and hopefully another 5 stars

Absolutely awful airline, with even worst customer service.

We arrived in Melbourne on 28th Feb 2023, only to find that my luggage was missing. I got it back after 2 MONTHS and had to spend all my savings on new clothes and medication.

The journey to getting it back was absolutely appaling. My emails and calls were being ignored to the point where I was trying to contact them every day. I ended up going through Facebook messenger.

They finally got back to me saying they have found my suitcase and will contact me when it is on the way. 2 days later and the WRONG suitcase arrived with no indication it was on the way, AFTER I had asked them to check the contents inside before the sent it. So then I ended up with some poor woman's suitcase in my garage.

Fast foward another month, and my mother all the way back in England was also trying to contact them as we were being IGNORED!!

FINALLY my suitcase turned up, not thanks to Royal Brunei, but to the luggage company in London/Melbourne (Menzies I believe). I have been trying to contact Royal Brunei for a further 3 weeks now about the compensation they owe me (they should pay me a certain amount for each day I was without my case and then some!!) STILL NO LUCK and yet again being ignored after resorting to contacting them about 4 times a week.

They clearly do not want to take responsibility for the amount of financial and mental stress they have caused me, yet alone pay me the compensation I deserve. They are withholding my money and it's disgusting and unethical.

I have never known such useless and disgraceful customer service.

Please fly with another airline!!

I had cancellation without any apparent reason last September 2022 and it took Royal Brunei 5 days to give us a replacement flight and they rebooked me to another flight which was 7 days later than original date!!

My husband had to pay visa extension, I missed one week of work hence lost a week worth of income and my children missed 7 days of school.

I emailed them several time to request a compensation but not once they replied. This is our second time experiencing problem with a Royal Brunei. Previously in 20017 they lost our luggage then they found it and delivered it to our house in which the luggage was broken (cracked open) and I believe they left it under the rain as our item was ruined due to water.

It is so disappointing and I am still waiting their reply.

A fantastic customer service I have received from London Royal Brunei Airline Office. They have given me update on my flight schedule and the changes that happened to no fault of their own. As the current global circumstances have been changing more drastically than ever. Numaan assisted me on this and have given me outright options as possibly as he can. Thank you very much for your service, I am pleased!