By Waleed PD Mahdini
With the changes and developments to the national carrier, Royal Brunei Airlines' modernisation programme now set on autopilot, it is hoped to take it out of the red and soar further to greater heights of achievements and service, the deputy chairman, Dermot Mannion, was recently quoted by industry experts, Air and Business Travel News magazine, of the latest updates in RBAs future plans.
"The next change will be August 2012 when we become the first airline in Southeast Asia to introduce the Dreamliner. By June 2014, we'll have five Boeing 787s. They are the optimum aircraft for us in terms of size," explained Mr Mannion, who has spent most of his career in the airline industry.
Although the Dreamliner will offer 254 seats rather than the 285 seats on the current Boeing 777 aircraft, "the configuration from the passenger point of view is going to be very strong, 3-3-3 in economy and 2-2-2 in business". Emphasising on the added comfort space on offer from RBA's new fleet, Mr Mannion further pointed out that the 18 designated business class seats "with 79-inches of pitch is very good by industry standards" whilst the economy seats with its spacious 34-inch seat pitch will deliver more customer satisfaction.
The airline executive then explained the rationale behind the new fleet. "In the period before I arrived at RBA, the airline had an order for long-range Boeing 777s, which would have gone all the way from Brunei to London non-stop, but to be frank, the economics of that just didn't work out. Dubai traffic is very important to us, as is London, so keeping the two-stop approach on balance is the one that works best for us. But that sometimes means we need to adjust that in terms of pricing, if we're looking to attract the business traffic to go from London all the way to Melbourne. It's a very short stop, anyway. Some of our passengers are complaining the stopover isn't long enough, because they don't get to go to duty free areas. The stop over is 45 minutes, so if you're trying to run through Dubai airport, that's a real challenge, even for the ardent shopper."
Although much has been reported in all of the international interviews with the deputy chairman, so far despite its seemingly-nascent progress, Mr Mannion did reveal that RBA continues on with its winning formula by bagging the 'Airline of the Year' award for the Malaysian federal state of Sabah last year, "which is a good award for us as we're up against stiff competition from Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, which have multiple carriers there, so that was a good positive development for the organisation".
Adding onto the Kota Kinabalu route, the top executive highlighted: "We've got 14 flights a week to Kota Kinabalu, an impressive destination by itself.
Regarding the issue of cutting back some of the carrier's long-haul destinations, Mr Mannion pointed out RBA's strategy during his 18-month tenure so far with the national carrrier, "We've had to restructure by cutting back on our long-haul activity. We've cut a whole bunch of routes to Australia because the airline was in an impossible position. We're a smaller carrier but found ourselves competing for Kangaroo traffic against big airlines in the Middle East. I was with Emirates for years, so I know only too well how they operate, and there are some market places you're better off out of".
Touching on the refocusing of their long-haul routes, "We refocused attention to look exclusively at the strategically important routes for Brunei: Melbourne in one direction, and London and Dubai in the other. We've been investing a lot in training, in product development for the organisation and I think we're beginning to see the benefit of that now".
But the experienced airline executive highlighted the challenges in finding the optimum balance between operating long and short-haul flights. "You need a certain critical mass if you're going to be relevant in the long-haul business so you've got to be daily, which is what we have on Melbourne and London, which also stops in Dubai. We feed traffic from Brunei, from other regions and we feed from Melbourne. In the old days, we had a more extensive network to Australia. But from a standing start 10 years ago, the Gulf carriers have probably got 40 per cent of that market now. Emirates alone are close to 30 per cent of that and Etihad are now beginning to expand. That market place is going to become ever more competitive, so it's really not the place for us."
The approach that is being currently adopted is "much more centred on traffic potential into and out of Britain and to Brunei. Brunei is relatively unexplored from a tourism point of view. It's a perfect stopover if you are going somewhere else in the region, and something of an undiscovered treasure."
Aside from the route changes and the fleet upgrades, Mr Mannion noted the other projects underway. "There is a modernisation strategy going on now, which is upgrading the interiors of the airport, and will be ready probably by the end of 2013 - good timing for us as it coincides with the 787s entry into service. We're also doing a whole rebranding exercise; we have consultants working with us, and by the end of the year you'll begin to see some manifestation of that. It's all working together, rebranding the airline, repackaging the airport, and re-fleeting at the same time. The idea is that by early 2014, the whole rebranding scheme is completed and in operation."
With the millions of dollars being injected into the national carrier, Mr Mannion identified the niches that it hopes to tap into to keep it in the black.
"Some 30 per cent of our traffic to and from the UK is business-orientated. We get business from SMEs who are not on corporate accounts and who are looking for something that is price competitive. Also we find people using RBA as a gateway not just to the Southeast Asia region, but to Melbourne as well.
More generally, Brunei has a diversification strategy under way, to move away from an overdependence on oil and gas. They're trying to encourage the high technology sector and we're beginning to see some positive development in that. There's a huge investment going on in education in Brunei. At any one time, there's at least 3,000 students sent overseas by the government of Brunei, most of them to the UK, to be educated at the government's expense, to the top business schools, science colleges and so on are also flying with us. Tourism is also important. Right now, the government sees that it is part of a diversification strategy and is absolutely crucial."
Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin Weekend
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