Flight And Bus Tickets Frozen From Dec 23 To Jan 20

As a result of rising Omicron circumstances worldwide, the republic of Singapore is freezing gross sales of all tickets for vaccinated journey lane (VTL) flights and buses beginning December 23 to January 20. If you happen to’ve already bought a ticket for these dates, nevertheless, you’ll be able to nonetheless journey to Singapore through the VTL.

Beginning December 23, airways will now not be allowed to promote new VTL flight tickets for journey into Singapore, and the suspension of gross sales additionally applies to these travelling on the Singapore-Malaysia land VTL.

In a statement, the Ministry of Well being in Singapore stated these measures are to restrict publicity to imported Omicron case. VTL quotas and ticket gross sales for journey after January 20 can even be briefly lowered.

MOH acknowledged, “We’re selecting up extra Omicron circumstances due to the speedy unfold of the variant throughout many nations/areas. To date, our enhanced testing regime for travellers has helped us to detect 65 confirmed Omicron circumstances. With aggressive contact tracing and ringfencing measures, now we have, for now, been capable of restrict onward group transmission. However it’s a matter of time earlier than the Omicron variant spreads in our group.”

Newest Singapore VTL updates

Final week, it was introduced that the Singapore-Malaysia Land Vaccinated Journey Lane (VTL) will probably be opened to each Singapore and Malaysian residents, efficient 20 December. This was to permit extra teams of individuals to journey between Singapore and Malaysia. Within the first part, solely everlasting residents from both nation had been allowed to return dwelling to reunite with their households.

In the meantime, The Edge reported that Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), the dad or mum firm of Malaysia Airways, is awaiting approval from the Singapore and Malaysian governments on the proposal for an air VTL between Singapore and Penang.

Group chief govt officer Captain Izham Ismail stated, “The success of implementing the air VTL route beforehand needs to be taken as a benchmark for the implementation of the proposed air VTL route linking Penang and Singapore. Nevertheless, the choice on the implementation has not been made but. (We) have to attend for selections by Singapore and (Well being Minister) Khairy Jamaluddin.”

Principal picture credit score: Roslan RAHMAN / AFP