Singapore removes preflight COVID testing for vaccinated arrivals

Singapore has announced that from April 26, 2022, all fully-vaccinated travellers and all children 12 and under, entering by air or sea will no longer be required to take a pre-departure [COVID] test (PDT). Entry requirements for non-fully vaccinated travellers remain the same: Short-Term Visitors (STVs) aged 13 and above are not allowed to enter Singapore, with very few exceptions e.g. for compassionate reasons. Non-fully vaccinated travellers aged 13 and above who are allowed to enter Singapore under such exceptions will be required to take a PDT within 2 days before departure for Singapore, undergo a 7-day SHN, and take a Polymerase Chain Reaction COVID-19 test at the end of their SHN period. Full details can be found here; Singapore is now one of the leading countries rolling back restrictions on travel as it finds the hospital rate for the Omicron variant is far lower than the Delta strain of COVID. Singapore Airlines and its low-cost subsidiary are now operating their complete networks. Passenger traffic through the hub city is now soaring as borders lift according to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority with passenger traffic in Singapore now at 31 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. There were 400,000 passengers for the week ending Apr 17, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said on Monday 18, in a press release. The increase in air passenger traffic was broad-based with traffic volume increased for all major markets, with particularly strong growth for traffic to and from Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand the CAAS said. Direct traffic increased for both international and local travellers, with Singapore citizens and permanent residents making up 32 per cent of total direct traffic. SEE the podcast: Flight Safety Detectives dissect the Netflix doco “Downfall”. READ: Etihad Airways unveils its new A350 The CAAS said that number of passenger flights also increased to 38 per cent of pre-COVID levels in the week ending April 17, 2022, from 29 per cent a month ago. The frequency of flights to and from Australia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam increased significantly. Three airlines, namely Air New Zealand, Myanmar Airways International, and PT. Batik Air Indonesia, restarted scheduled passenger flights to the hub city. Air links were also re-established with five new cities, namely Cairns, Da Nang, Kota Kinabalu, Madurai, and Riyadh. CAAS said it is working with the aviation community to ramp up operations and manpower to meet demand as air travel recovers in 2022 and to rebuild and reclaim its position as a premier air hub.