INFRASTRUCTURE Promoting facilities abroad
On route to being a land and sea hub

An important role in promoting the Visit Brunei Year 2001 campaign is played by the government-owned Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA). The airline flies to 22 destinations in Europe, Australia, the Middle East, Asia and the Far East. Thanks to a code-sharing agreement with British Midland, passengers can take advantage of seamless connections between Heathrow and other UK and European cities.
From Brunei’s Bandar Seri Begawan international airport, RBA provides a link to the other Bornean states. There are regular flights to Kuching airport in Sarawak, Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, and Balikpapan in Kalimantan. It also offers an excellent stopover for travellers to Australia. RBA has built up a good track record over the past 25 years and has one of the youngest fleet of aircraft in the world.

Pengiran Ali Ahmad, executive director of Royal Brunei Airlines, says it is important to have air services to China

“The UK is a very important market for us,” says the airline’s executive director, Pengiran Ali Ahmad. “We operate a daily service and about nine per cent of our revenue comes in from there. We are hopeful that our operations in the UK will be even bigger in the future.
“We have open-sky agreements with the United States and we are still hopeful of operating to there also,” he adds.
“The regional routes continue to be the most profitable for us. International flights are something that we need constantly to assess in terms of the way we charge fares, allocate seats and other considerations. The routes within Borneo and to other BIMP-EAGA destinations are quite new to people.”

BIMP-EAGA is an acronym for the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines-East Asean Growth Area. Pengiran Ali Ahmad says RBA is to upgrade its fleet with the modern A319 Airbus as these are more suitable for regional destinations.
With more liberal traffic rights, RBA hopes to be able to resume its services to Beijing, which were suspended in 1999. Pengiran Ali Ahmad says the airline already has traffic rights to Shanghai and Xiamen. “It is important for us to have those services to China,” he says. Currently, RBA has a revenue-sharing agreement with Hong Kong’s Dragon Airlines, which does not fly to Brunei but accepts RBA’s passengers to Hong Kong on their 12 routes to China.

Meanwhile the airline’s latest sales facility is a recently launched online booking facility, a first in Brunei.
Brunei could become the air hub for the region, particularly for the transshipment of cargo. Haji Abdul Kadir Bin Tengah, deputy director of the Department of Civil Aviation, says the government’s vision is to make Brunei a Service Hub for Trade and Tourism (ShuTT) by 2003. “In order to do this, we have three concepts – to create an airport city, a cargo village and a carrier to make Brunei international airport the leading regular hub,” he says.
“We intend to build more duty-free shops and a hotel, which will be completed in two years’ time. We have signed a tenancy agreement with a consortium for the transshipment project to develop our cargo village, and we plan to strengthen our aircraft maintenance centre.

“Some completed projects include the improvement of the terminal building and rehabilitation of the runway.”
Muara Port is also critical to Brunei’s aim of playing a central role in BIMP-EAGA. Haji Ibrahim Ali, director of the government’s Ports Department, says Muara is at the centre of the ShuTT programme.
A key part of the port’s development is the Brunei Bay Project, which will create another container terminal, a cruise liner terminal, a commercial and industrial plant, a refinery and a free-trade zone. The proposed Serasa Maritime Complex will provide residential development, hotels, a marina and a golf course.
The government is putting up at least $50 million and is seeking a further $400 million from the private sector to get the scheme off the ground. Ibrahim Ali says the idea is to emulate the success of Singapore Port, which runs the recently privatised Muara container port.