Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble postponed
Air travel bubble delayed for at least two weeks after Hong Kong reports 43 new cases on Saturday.
Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific are the only airlines that had been given permission to run initial travel-bubble flights. Both airways had told booked passengers they would receive refund for their tickets or could alternatively reschedule flights.
A planned air travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore which had been due to start on Sunday has been delayed for at least two weeks, due to new cases being detected in Hong Kong, said the respective authorities from the two places.
The secretary of Hong Kong Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah said both governments had agreed to delay the launch of the arrangement.
Transport Minister of Singapore, Ong Ye Kung, said in a Facebook post on Saturday: “Given the evolving situation in Hong Kong, Mr Yau and I decided that it would be better to defer the launch of the air travel bubble by two weeks.”
The very two casino complexes in the city-state, Marina Bay Sands and Resorts World Sentosa – which had both been shuttered earlier in the health crisis – have already flagged the fact that their hotel facilities are currently being marketed to domestic customers, in the absence of meaningful numbers of foreign visitors.
The Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble had been due to start with one flight a day into each city, with a quota of 200 travelers per flight: with plans later to increase the link to two flights per day, if all went well.
Editing by Rachel Hu
