From November 29, Singapore is adding Indonesia to its list of countries whose nationals will be offered quarantine-free air travel to the city-state provided they are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 and test ‘negative’ for the disease before departure and after arrival.
Investment analysts have noted in commentary prior to the pandemic crisis, that visitors from Indonesia were key consumers for Singapore’s tourism market, and for entertainment at the city-state’s two casino resorts, Marina Bay Sands, and Resorts World Sentosa.
“We will launch a unilateral vaccinated travel lane with Indonesia from November 29,” said Singapore’s Minister of Transport S. Iswaran at Monday’s Covid-19 multi-ministry task force press conference.
In pre-pandemic times, Indonesia was a top-five source market for passenger arrivals at Singapore Changi Airport (pictured). Indonesian nationals, accounted for about 10 percent of arrivals at the air hub in 2019, the minister mentioned.
Under the Vaccinated Travel Lane scheme, Singapore would start with two daily designated flight services between the city-state and Jakarta, and will progressively increase to four the daily flight frequency.
Last week, the city-state announced that it would, from November 29, start a quarantine-free flight arrangement with Malaysia, another important source market for Singapore tourism.
India is expected to join the quarantine-free flight scheme from November 29. Singapore was in discussion with that nation on the resumption of scheduled commercial flights under the terms of the programme. Singapore aimed to start two daily flights respectively with Chennai, Delhi, and Mumbai, Mr Iswaran stated.
Jabbed travellers from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will be added to Singapore’s Vaccinated Travel Lane programme from December 6, said on Monday Singapore’s transport minister. Singapore aims to have in aggregate shared among those nations, three to four daily flights under the scheme.
Singapore’s Vaccinated Travel Lane initiative began in September. With the countries to be added on November 29 and December 6, a total of 21 nations will be involved, according to information from the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.
They are: Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, the Netherlands, Malaysia, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the UAE, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
“…Pre-Covid [19], these 21 countries contributed just under 50 percent of the total daily arrivals at [Singapore] Changi [Airport]. Our Vaccinated Travel Lane quotas amount to about one-quarter of the total pre-Covid flows from these countries,” said Mr Iswaran on Monday.
