Lee (left) receives a souvenir from Sabirin after their meeting.
KUCHING (Jan 31): Royal Brunei Airlines (RBA) may upgrade to the bigger B787 Dreamliner aircraft for its Brunei-Kuching sector or mount additional flights for the coming festive season, according to a statement from Sarawak Ministry of Transport (MoT).
It said RBA chief executive officer Captain Sabirin Abdul Hamid mentioned this plan during a courtesy call on the state Transport Minister Dato Sri Lee Kim Shin on Tuesday.
Sabirin had told Lee that RBA will either upgrade the service using the bigger B787 Dreamliner aircraft or mount additional flights if the demand for tickets warrants it.
Currently, the Brunei-Kuching route is served by A320 aircraft.
“On passenger uplift, Capt Sabirin reported that RBA carried slightly more than 9,000 passengers into Kuching in the last financial year and is expecting to exceed last year’s passenger number this year with the increased capacity on these services. These are the passengers who transit Brunei to and from RBA’s 20 destinations,” explained the statement.
Sabirin said RBA will also increase its flights from Brunei into Kuching to four times weekly on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays effective April 5 this year.
Elaborating, he said most of the passenger load to Sarawak in 2022/2023 averaged above 65 per cent.
He explained Kuching, via Brunei through RBA, has 11 to 13 weekly connections to other international destinations such as Bangkok, Dubai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Jeddah, Melbourne, Manila, Tokyo, Ho Chi Minh City, Surabaya and Taipei
Sabirin also mentioned that RBA had organised a special tailored joint campaign in 2023 with Tourism Malaysia whereby agents from Melbourne, Taipei and Tokyo came for a familiarisation trip to Kuching to develop new leisure and golf products.
“(This) is an ongoing effort at RBA station to promote travel to Kuching via Brunei. The additional Kuching frequency also introduces both-way connection for Umrah opportunities and to develop the Korean market to visit Kuching by promoting new leisure and golf products,” added the statement.
Meanwhile, Lee in his remarks said that joint marketing campaigns and roadshows with Sarawak Tourism Board should continue to promote Sarawak via Brunei
He added that the issue of lack of foreign language-speaking tour guides will be referred to the appropriate agency for action to be taken.
Accompanying Lee at the meeting were the ministry’s officials, namely Sio Yew Hua and Tiong King Wei.