Flight and bus tickets frozen from Dec 23 to Jan 20

As a consequence of rising Omicron circumstances in Singapore, the republic is freezing gross sales of all tickets for vaccinated journey lane (VTL) flights and buses beginning December 23 to January 20. For those who’ve already bought a ticket for these dates, nonetheless, you’ll be able to nonetheless journey to Singapore by way of the VTL.

Beginning December 23, airways will 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 may even be briefly diminished.

MOH acknowledged, “We’re choosing up extra Omicron circumstances due to the speedy unfold of the variant throughout many nations/areas. To this point, our enhanced testing regime for travellers has helped us to detect 65 confirmed Omicron circumstances. With aggressive contact tracing and ringfencing measures, we’ve got, for now, been in a position to 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) shall 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 residence to reunite with their households.

In the meantime, The Edge reported that Malaysia Aviation Group (MAG), the guardian 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 ought to be taken as a benchmark for the implementation of the proposed air VTL route linking Penang and Singapore. Nonetheless, the choice on the implementation has not been made but. (We) have to attend for choices by Singapore and (Well being Minister) Khairy Jamaluddin.”

Primary picture credit score: Roslan RAHMAN / AFP