‘Some safe opening’ of air travel expected: Singapore transport minister

Singapore’s transport minister has played down any indication of a V-shaped recovery of the aviation industry this year, but notes that the first shoots of recovery are starting to form and this is something “worth working towards”. Furthermore, if governments cautiously open up to regions with low coronavirus infections — while tightening measures for areas with high infections rates — “we should see some safe opening of air travel” this year, said Ong Ye Kung. He was speaking at a virtual conference on safe reopening of international borders, organised by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) Business Advisory Council. Ong’s comments come a week after Singapore and Hong Kong announced the relaunch of an air travel bubble arrangement between both cities, after a failed attempt in late 2020. Since then, Singapore has seen an uptick in local coronavirus cases, including a cluster at a hospital. Ong told the forum that while the number of unlinked cases in the city-state were still low, recent developments have underscored the fragility of air travel bubble arrangements, as well as a broader reopening of borders. “[The] reopening of borders is something that requires a lot of work, a lot of discussions, and is an imperative in the immediate to medium-term,” says Ong. The minister notes that the “key objective” of an air travel bubble “is to replace quarantine with other risk mitigation measures, because quarantine kills the demand for travel”. <br/>