Hong Kong and Singapore plan to start an air travel bubble that would replace quarantine with COVID-19 testing from Sunday next week, officials said in separate media briefings yesterday.
There are to be several flights a week on Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways from that date, rising to daily from Dec. 7. A maximum of 200 people are to be permitted on each flight.
Details of the arrangement, released nearly a month after the two Asian hubs first announced that they would reopen their borders to one another, would be reviewed after one month.
Photo: AFP
Singaporean Minister for Transport Ong Ye Kung (王乙康) told a news briefing that this was the first travel bubble of its type and might be used as a template for other countries, if successful.
The travel bubble would help to ensure a brighter future for the city-state’s Changi Airport and Singapore Airlines, he said.
Travel bubbles are seen as key to reopening borders ahead of the introduction of an effective and internationally recognized vaccine.
Yet they have been hard to put into practice, as COVID-19 continues to spread or flare again in much of the world.
Cases globally have surpassed 51 million, while deaths are nearing 1.3 million.
Even the Singapore-Hong Kong arrangement comes with a long list of requirements and some restrictions.
The waiting time for a COVID-19 test would likely be about four hours and fares would be a commercial decision for the two airlines, Ong said.
“I suspect travelers might well be quite careful in the beginning before they gradually become more confident,” Ong said. “I suspect that many Singaporeans and Hong Kongers will take a wait-and-see attitude until after a while you can do one test less perhaps.”
Flying in the travel bubble would also require a degree of paperwork.
Tests should be taken within 72 hours prior to departure and applications for travel approval should be done online at least seven days ahead of time.
Should travelers test positive for the virus in Singapore or Hong Kong, they would need to bear the full cost of any medical treatment provided to them.
Travelers must also have been in Hong Kong or Singapore for 14 days before departure.
Having brought their COVID-19 outbreaks largely under control, Hong Kong and Singapore are eager to prize open their borders and get their economies ticking back to life again.
Hong Kong’s total reported infections stand at 5,389, while Singapore’s tally is just more than 58,000.
That contrasts with many nations in Europe, as well as the US, which is reporting more than 100,000 cases a day.
“Both Singapore and Hong Kong rely a lot on the success of the airlines and airports for their economies,” said Shukor Yusof, founder of aviation consulting firm Endau Analytics.
Ticket prices have risen in anticipation of the Hong Kong-Singapore bubble.
The lowest fares on Singapore Airlines economy class rose to S$678 (US$503) for return flights next month, up from S$557 earlier this month, the carrier’s Web site showed.
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