Last month marked 50 years since the foundation of Royal Brunei Airlines in 1974. The carrier commenced operations the following year, and has since grown to become something of an unsung hero of Asian aviation, serving a wide range of destinations with its small fleet. The airline's flagships are its Boeing 787-8s from the US manufacturer's Dreamliner family, of which it presently flies five.
By the numbers According to data from by ch-aviation , Royal Brunei Airlines' five Boeing 787-8 'Dreamliner' twinjets are 10.1 years old on average. This makes them the carrier's oldest aircraft, although it does only operate one other type (seven Airbus A320neos at an average age of 6.
4 years old). Subsequently, they also sit slightly above the mean figure for the age of the fleet as a whole, which comes to 8.3 years.
Love aviation history ? Discover more of our stories here! Four of these aircraft arrived brand new at Royal Brunei within half a year of each other, starting with V8-DLA and V8-DLB in October of 2013. These aircraft were followed by V8-DLC and V8-DLD in March and April of 2014 respectively, with the four planes having since gone on to amass relatively similar numbers of hours and cycles. Indeed, they have roughly averaged 30,000 hours and 4,700 cycles apiece.
Separate from these four aircraft, Royal Brunei Airlines' fifth and final example of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner joined the Asian carrier's fleet in June of 2018. Registered as V8-DLE, this 6.9-year-old twin-aisle j.
