All posts tagged: News

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 …

Qantas sets sight to resume Singapore services from mid-December

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Qantas is ready to resume overseas flights in mid-December 2021 based on the pace of Australian’s vaccination rollout, but…. will it actually happen? In Qantas’ full year results announcement today, the Australian airline also outlined its plans for international services when Australia gradually reopen borders, which would be triggered when the Australian national vaccination rate surpasses its designated 80% threshold. The airline said that its plan remains dependent on Government decisions in the coming months, “including future quarantine requirements.” Qantas to first restart services to countries with high vaccination rates, including Singapore When Qantas’ international flights take to the skies again, they will not restart the entire network, but instead choose a small group of destinations with high vaccination rates. These destinations include US, UK and Singapore, among others. Key markets like the UK, North America and parts of Asia “have high and increasing levels of vaccination”, the airline says. “This makes them highly likely to be classed as low risk countries for vaccinated travellers to visit and return from under reduced quarantine requirements, pending …

Singapore to commence quarantine-free travel lanes from Germany and Brunei from 8 September

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Singapore residents can now visit Germany and back without any form of isolation or quarantine requirements. The Singapore government yesterday (19 Aug 2021) announced that it will waive quarantine requirements for vaccinated travellers from Brunei and Germany from 8 Sep 2021, subject to several conditions, including frequent testing. The arrangement, called Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL), will allow a set number of fully vaccinated visitors or returning residents to come into Singapore from these two countries without the need for any Stay-Home Notice. While this new VTL covers both Brunei and Germany for a start, many travellers will most likely be interested in Germany as a leisure destination, after being starved of travel for more than a year. Let’s cover how the VTL will work in detail. Overview of the mechanics To be clear, the VTL mechanism is only applicable for the inbound journey to Singapore. For Singapore-based residents, the outbound journey and its requirements is dependent on the country you are visiting (more on this later). For your VTL journey to Singapore from Germany, Civil …

Singapore to ease SHN requirements for vaccinated travellers from eight countries

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Singapore will allow some visitors and returning Singaporeans and residents to serve Stay-Home Notice (SHN) at their place of residence starting from 20 August Singapore will soon allow fully vaccinated travellers from eight countries to serve their 7 or 14-day SHN at home, starting 11.59pm on 20 Aug 2021 (i.e 21 Aug 2021). The countries are: Australia 🇦🇺 Austria 🇦🇹 Canada 🇨🇦 Germany 🇩🇪 Italy 🇮🇹 Norway 🇳🇴 South Korea 🇰🇷 Switzerland 🇨🇭 While this doesn’t amount to a complete lifting of SHN requirements, this is still a very heartening development, as most arrivals into Singapore for the past 18 months had to be served in dedicated facilities (i.e. hotels).  Who is eligible to serve SHN at home? The option to serve a 14-day SHN at home will be available from 11.59pm, 20 Aug 2021 (i.e. 21 Aug onwards) to travellers arriving from the abovementioned countries, provided they fulfill the following conditions too: Travellers must be fully-vaccinated. Full vaccination is defined as having completed the full regimen of Pfizer-BioNTech/Comiraty, Moderna, or any other vaccine on the WHO’s Emergency Use Listing (i.e. AstraZeneca, …

Cathay Pacific to merge Asia Miles and Marco Polo Club in new programme to launch in 2022

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No more confusing differences between the two programmes, hooray! In a seemingly fluffy email sent out by Cathay Pacific today, the airline announced a new lifestyle brand named ‘Cathay’. More importantly, Cathay Pacific’s somewhat confusing two loyalty programmes – Asia Miles & Marco Polo Club – will be merged into a single programme in the first half of 2022. What is Cathay? Cathay is touted as the airline’s new master brand, which it said “represents much more than airline travel”, and “seeks to become a premium travel lifestyle brand, consisting of a host of complementary categories – flights, hotels, shopping, dining, wellness, credit cards”. What this essentially means is that Cathay Pacific will now focus on non-flying businesses that traditionally complement travel, held together by a central currency of miles and points. In whole, this is considered an entire ‘travel lifestyle proposition‘. For a start, Cathay will only being rolled out to Hong Kong-based customers. Customers outside of Hong Kong will continue to see Cathay Pacific as the airline and master brand, as it will …