The long-awaited Hong Kong-Singapore bubble is finally allowed to restart next month – albeit with strict travel conditions.
The official Air Travel Bubble (ATB) will launch on May 26 on “selected flights” between two Asian cities.
The bubbles were introduced as Covid infections in both places stabilized.
However, unlike the ANZ bubble that was launched last week, travelers have a number of conditions before moving between the two cities.
First, Hong Kong citizens must receive two doses of the vaccine to travel and test negative for the novel coronavirus before departure and upon arrival in order to evade quarantine requirements.
Travelers must also have spent the past 14 days in their respective territories, and travelers to Singapore must download the country’s official contact tracing app to use it locally.
If the number of infections in Hong Kong or Singapore exceeds the 7-day moving average5, air corridors will be suspended for two weeks.
The news comes a week after the trans-Tasman bubble linked Australia and New Zealand, allowing residents to travel freely between the two countries without quarantine or testing.
The air corridor between Hong Kong and Singapore was first proposed in November last year, but only started after cases rose in Hong Kong.
The Hong Kong government issued a statement saying the bubble would “resume cross-border air travel in a gradual and orderly manner when the epidemic situation in the two places stabilizes”.
“Both sides need to be on high alert for the next month so that we can launch the first flights smoothly,” said Mr Ong Ye Kung, Minister of Transport of the Republic of Singapore. “This is an important ATB between two aviation and financial services hubs in Asia. “
Dr. Peng Yugang, Chairman of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, said: “Restarting the air travel bubble with Singapore is the first step for Hong Kong to resume international tourism, and it is also a milestone for Hong Kong to gradually welcome more tourists back home.
“We expect the early arrivals of ATB to be those traveling for family or other essential reasons, with leisure travelers returning over time.”
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/MF7VLBV5FFIWJJ36PFNYCY57RM.jpg "Singapore expands quarantine-free travel, sees COVID-19 as ‘new normal’")