- The restrictions set up in response to the Covid-19 pandemic ban will be eased, allowing quarantine-free trips to the Lion City
- The daily passenger quota is set at 200 people on a single designated flight per day, run by Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines
Trips to Singapore will be possible from November 22. Photo: EPA-EFEIt’s official! The long-awaited travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore will launch on November 22, with the number of people allowed to move quarantine-free in each direction initially limited to 200 per day.
Details of the deal struck during the coronavirus crisis were announced in simultaneous press conferences held in both cities on Wednesday morning.
“This is as close as it gets to cross-border travel pre-Covid-19, and this is only possible because both Singapore and Hong Kong have successfully controlled the spread of Covid-19,” said Ong Ye Kung, Singapore’s transport minister.
Hong Kong and Singapore last month reached an agreement to establish a travel bubble that would allow movement between the two places without the need for quarantine.
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Travellers from both cities must board designated bubble flights. At the start of the scheme, there will be one flight a day into each city with a quota of 200 travellers per flight.
From December 7, the number of flights into each city will be increased to two daily.
The travel bubble would be suspended if the daily average number of untraceable Covid-19 cases in a week reached more than five in either Singapore or Hong Kong. If that figure then dropped to five or fewer, the bubble would resume.
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For the launch on November 22, Singapore Airlines’ designated travel bubble service will operate between the city state and Hong Kong while Cathay Pacific will operate a return flight.
From November 23 to 29, Singapore Airlines will fly these bubble flights on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday, and Cathay will do so on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. They will swap this arrangement from November 30 to December 6, after which there will be daily flights from each airline.