Singapore Airlines will no longer be flying transit passengers from Singapore to Hong Kong.
More bad airline news this month with Singapore Airlines (SIA) announcing that it will no longer be carrying transit passengers from Singapore to Hong Kong.
The move has already come into effect and SIA’s budget carrier, Scoot, will also stop carrying transit passengers from Singapore starting April 30.
The airline has blamed the decision on Hong Kong’s strict Covid requirements which saw SIA slapped with a temporary passenger flight arrival ban by Hong Kong authorities from April 3 to 16. The ban was due to a passenger on a flight from Singapore at the end of March testing positive for Covid on arrival in Hong Kong. Three passengers were also considered to have failed to comply with requirements specified by the Prevention and Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances and Travellers) regulation.
“From April 17 until further notice, Singapore Airlines will stop carrying transit passengers on our services from Singapore to Hong Kong due to new regulatory requirements in Hong Kong,” said the airline in a statement. “Services from Hong Kong to Singapore remain unaffected, and passengers originating from Hong Kong will be allowed to transfer through Singapore Changi Airport en route to their final destinations.”
Scoot has also since announced that it will stop carrying transit passengers until further notice. The budget carrier had also been temporarily barred from landing in Hong Kong from Singapore; on a recent flight two passengers tested positive and one had failed to comply with the same cross-boundary regulation.
Hong Kong requires all incoming passengers to have a negative PCR certificate from their place of origin and they must undergo a further test on arrival before carrying out 21 days of hotel quarantine.
In slightly more positive news, Singapore has announced that it will be reducing its Stay Home Notice (SHN) from 14 to seven days for arrivals from Hong Kong. The compulsory SHN can also now be served from a residential address and the new ruling will come into effect from April 22 at one minute to midnight. Travellers must have been in Hong Kong for the previous 14 days.
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