I flew to Australia with Royal Brunei, which was very pleasant. I booked it on price, but checked the leg-room first, both to find out the leg-room and as an indicator for other aspects of the flight, and 33" is pretty good. One thing I hadn"t realized, though, is that it is a Muslim airline. We had a nice prayer before take-off, translated into English and two kinds of foreign on the screen, though it went on for about five minutes, which was a bit long. A nice touch is that the information screen always includes the distance and direction of Mecca, so you can keep your own prayers on track, if you so need. The biggest impact, though, which came as a surprise to many passengers, is that there is no alcohol served on its flights, which is why there will never be an APAT event in Brunei. Otherwise, the in-flight service was good. A bit disconcerting, though, to be told each time you land that the penalty for bringing in drugs is death.
There was an Orthodox Jew in full regalia on the flight from Melbourne to Brunei. I don"t know whether he didn"t know the set-up when he booked or didn"t mind. I didn"t need to run into any trouble en-route but, luckily, there were no incidents, though I never did see him again after take-off.
I made the mistake of stopping off in Brunei on the way back. If you fly with them in the future, don"t do this. There is nothing there. The capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, is about the size of Banbury and you can walk around it in twenty minutes, unless you stop at the department store. In fairness, there is more out-of-town shopping than in the centre, but nothing interesting. I first realized my mistake at Heathrow, when I was chatting with some Bruneians and asked what there was to do. They said I could visit the Sultan"s place or the rain-forest. Anything else? Not really. You could go to Malaysia. What can you do there? Er, you can visit the rain-forest........
