HK, Singapore agree to resume delayed air travel bubble in May
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A LONG delayed travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore will begin on May 26, the two cities said yesterday, as they moved to re-establish overseas travel links and lift the hurdle of quarantine for visiting foreigners.
The bubble between two of Asia’s biggest financial hubs had been slated to begin last November but was suspended after a spike in coronavirus cases in Hong Kong.
The scheme will start with one flight a day into each city, with up to 200 travelers on each flight for the first two weeks, Hong Kong’s Commerce Secretary Edward Yau and Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye Ku said.
Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines will share the route with two daily flights planned from June 10 onward.
Those wanting to travel from either city must test negative for COVID-19 before departure and on arrival. Hong Kong residents can also only fly to Singapore at least 14 days after they have had two doses of COVID-19 vaccine.
Travelers are also required to have spent 14 days in each city before traveling, with compulsory quarantine periods not counting toward this period. Travelers on the route, which boasted 15-20 flights a day each way before coronavirus, won’t have to quarantine and there will be no restrictions on the purpose of travel.
However, if the seven-day moving average of the daily number of unlinked local COVID-19 cases is more than five for either Singapore or Hong Kong the scheme will be suspended for two weeks. It will only be resumed after the threshold of unlinked cases has been met, with three consecutive days of three or less unlinked infections and a daily moving average of not more than five such cases on the third day.
Travelers from both cities will also be expected to download the tracing apps of the destination.
“The re-launch ... signifies that gradual resumption of cross-border travel is achievable through mutual collaborations among different places,” said Yau.
Both sides will closely monitor the COVID-19 situation from now to the targeted launch date, and will “proceed with the launch if the situation continues to be steady and under control” in both sides, according to a statement issued by Singapore’s Ministry of Transport.
“Both sides will need to stay very vigilant in the next one month, so that we can launch the first flights smoothly,” said Ong.
For Hong Kong, which has banned non-residents since March 2020, the deal with Singapore is its first bilateral resumption of travel ties with another city.
Eligible Hong Kong residents in the mainland and Macau will be exempt from quarantine in the Asian financial city from as early as this week, Secretary for the Civil Service Patrick Nip said.
Singapore has some pacts on essential business and official travel, and has opened unilaterally to general visitors from countries and regions including Brunei, New Zealand and China’s mainland. Singapore has also been discussing an air travel bubble with Australia.
But new coronavirus cases have inched up in the past week, with Hong Kong reporting local transmission of a COVID-19 variant with the N501Y mutated strain and Singapore investigating possible COVID-19 reinfection cases at a migrant worker dormitory. The dormitories were at the center of Singapore’s outbreak last year with thousands of cases.
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