Hong Kong And Singapore Are Starting An Air Travel Bubble Between Them From May 26
Image Credit – Economic Times
Hong Kong and Singapore announced jointly on Monday that they are planning to launch an air bubble in May. The announcement comes months after both cities came to an agreement that they will permit tourists to fly between them and postponed the severe quarantine measures.
If the visitors satisfy the traveling conditions of the air bubble, they will not have to go through quarantine. The flights between the two cities will be starting from May 26th.
The launch of the air bubble was announced by Singapore and Hong Kong in November 2020. But they had to put it on hold after there was a huge surge in Coronavirus infection in Hong Kong.
Both the cities are trying to bring a boost in their tourism market after the economic devastation caused by the pandemic. Most of the countries had closed their borders for foreigners and stopped air travel outside of the countries.
Edward Yau, Hong Kong’s Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development said in a statement, ‘The two governments have reached consensus on the latest arrangement and will put in place more stringent public health protocols in response to the latest epidemic development.’ He also revealed, ‘Our goal remains striking a right balance between public health and travel convenience so that the public will rest assured while maintaining certainty.’
The air travel bubble protocol says that people traveling from Hong Kong to Singapore need to receive all the doses of the Covid-19 vaccine two weeks before their departure. Travelers from Singapore will not have to follow that rule while they are going to Hong Kong. The travelers will have to spend 14 days in each city before the travel. The mandatory quarantine period is not counted towards this period.
The air travel arrangement also says that if the average of local and untraceable Covid-19 case becomes more than 5 in any of the cities in seven moving-day periods, the flights will be suspended.
The air travel bubble will be resumed after the limit of unlinked cases has been fulfilled. If there are three or fewer unlinked cases in three consecutive days and a daily moving average does not exceed 5 on the third day, the cities will restart the air travel bubble.
The visitors from both Hong Kong and Singapore must download the tracing apps of their destinations.
Ong Ye Kung, The transport Minister of Singapore said, ‘I am happy that Hong Kong got the COVID-19 situation under control. It has been a long few months, but the conditions are now ripe again to re-launch the ATB.’
He also stated, ‘Both sides will need to stay very vigilant in the next one month so that we can launch the first flights smoothly. It is a significant ATB between two aviation and financial services hubs in Asia.’
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