Singapore to start ‘world first’ air travel bubble with Hong Kong

Hong Kong and Singapore will start an air travel bubble that will replace quarantine with Covid-19 testing from Nov. 22, officials said in separate media briefings yesterday.
There will be several flights a week on Singapore Airlines Ltd. and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. from that date, rising to daily from Dec. 7. A maximum of 200 people will be permitted on each flight and details of the arrangement, released nearly a month after the two Asian hubs first announced they’d reopen their borders to one another, will be reviewed after one month.
Singapore Minister for Transport Ong Ye Kung said at a news briefing that this was the first travel bubble of its type and may be used as a template for other countries, if successful. The travel bubble will help 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 rollout of an effective and internationally recognized vaccine. But they’ve been hard to put into practice as the coronavirus 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. Ong said the waiting time for a Covid test would likely be about four hours and fares would be a commercial decision for the two airlines.
“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 awhile you can do one test less perhaps.”
Flying on the travel bubble between the two cities will 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 become Covid positive in either city, they would need to bear the full cost of any medical treatment provided to them.
Shares in Singapore Airlines closed up 0.3% while Cathay rose 1.4%. Both carriers jumped sharply on Tuesday after a study showing a vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE protects most people from the coronavirus.
Having brought their Covid-19 outbreaks largely under control, Hong Kong and Singapore are eager to prise 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 over 58,000. That contrasts with many nations in Europe, as well as the U.S., which is now reporting over 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.
Officials from Hong Kong and Singapore said on Oct. 15 that quarantine would be replaced by coronavirus testing and that the two cities were hoping to start it in November. Travelers must have been in Hong Kong or Singapore for 14 days before departure and need to take and pass mutually recognized virus tests.
On Nov. 3, Hong Kong announced new rules stating that arrivals from anywhere other than mainland China would have to quarantine in a hotel for 14 days. But visitors from Singapore will be exempted from this under the travel bubble agreement. MDT/Bloomberg