All posts tagged: Hong Kong

Singapore Airlines restarting Frankfurt-New York and Hong Kong-San Francisco flights

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Singapore Airlines will resume two more fifth freedom flights in November: Frankfurt to New York and Hong Kong to San Francisco Singapore Airlines announced that it will reinstate two fifth freedom services to USA in November 2021, using the four-class Boeing 777-300ERs. The two services will resume SIA’s pre-pandemic connection between Frankfurt and New York as well as Hong Kong and San Francisco. Both these services will originate from Singapore to Frankfurt and Hong Kong respectively, before carrying on to USA. SIA last flew between Hong Kong and San Francisco in February 2020, and between Frankfurt and New York in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold. Tapping on reopening markets This is the continuation of SIA’s strategy in tapping on regions with progressively relaxed border measures in recent months. SIA has earlier in the year launched intra-Europe flights between Copenhagen and Rome, and also introduced a Taipei – Los Angeles service. In this latest development, SIA is definitely counting on the latest development in USA, who will ease restrictions and accept fully …

Singapore to restart travel bubble arrangement with Hong Kong from 26 May

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Will it be a second time lucky? The long awaited Air Travel Bubble (ATB) between Singapore and Hong Kong is finally set to take off from 26 May 2021, announced by both Singapore and Hong Kong on 26 Apr. This comes almost six months after the plans for the quarantine-free all-purpose travel arrangement was delayed just hours before its launch in November, and subsequently scuppered in December last year, due to a reflux of local cases in Hong Kong as new infections occured. What are the new requirements? By and large, the requirements remain the same as what was proposed last year, including: Travellers must have stayed in Singapore or Hong Kong wholly for the preceding 14 days before travel. This excludes select groups of foreign workers (Holders of Work Permits or S Passes working in the construction, marine shipyard and process sectors), as requested by the Hong Kong government. Travellers must take mutually recognised COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests and will need to have negative test results. Travellers will not be subject to any quarantine …

Singapore-Hong Kong ATB will not proceed until 2021

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The Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore officially announced yesterday (1 Dec 2020) that the Air Travel Bubble will be further delayed Singapore and Hong Kong have further reviewed the COVID-19 situation in Hong Kong, and given that local unlinked cases are still high, both parties have decided to defer the commencement of the Singapore – Hong Kong Air Travel Bubble (ATB) to beyond December 2020. The exact start date of the ATB arrangement will be reviewed in late December. Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore, 1 December 2020 Second deferment The ATB was originally scheduled to launch on 22 Nov 2020. However, Hong Kong started to see a new wave of Covid-19 cases, and at the eleventh hour, authorities from both countries announced late on eve of the inaugural flights that the ATB will be postponed by two weeks, with details to be announced this week. Fast forward two weeks later, we are now looking at an early 2021 launch, given that the cases in Hong Kong remain high, with the seven-day average of unlinked cases …

Singapore-Hong Kong ATB launch deferred by two weeks

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The travel bubble bursts for now, bubble slated for re-start on 6 Dec 2020 Travellers hoping to catch the Singapore-Hong Kong air travel bubble (ATB) will now have to wait another two weeks for it to begin, as Hong Kong is facing a possible ‘fourth wave’ in Covid-19 cases. The ATB was originally slated to commence today (22 Nov), but a decision was made on Saturday afternoon to postpone it by two weeks given the unstable situation in Hong Kong. On Saturday (21 Nov 2020), Hong Kong saw a total of 13 unlinked cases, bringing the seven day average of unlinked cases to 3.86. While this did not reach the mutually agreed threshold of 5, both countries agreed that it would be unwise to commence the ATB at this point. Given the evolving situation in Hong Kong, Secretary Edward Yau and I discussed further this afternoon, and decided that it would be better to defer the launch of the ATB, by two weeks. We will review within two weeks on the new launch date and …

Singapore-Hong Kong Air Travel Bubble to start 22 Nov

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Details of the Singapore-Hong Kong ‘Air Travel Bubble’ has been announced. Here’s what you need to know from testing to flights, landing arrangements and more. As promised, the Singapore authorities today shed more light on the details of the first Air Travel Bubble (ATB) arrangements between Singapore and Hong Kong. From 22 Nov, there will be one flight a day with an initial quota of 200 passengers. This increases to 2 flights a day from 7 December, with a total of 400 visitors to be carried each day. The story so far… When the bilateral ATB was first announced back in October 2020 by Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and Singapore’s Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung, it was met with much excitement by residents on both ends. The excitement arose from the fact that this is the first true leisure travel arrangement, with no restrictions on the type of travel and, more importantly, no quarantine required at either end of the journey. These are some of the facts that were put out for those …