The recovery of mass air travel will take "a couple of years", transport minister Ong Ye Kung said in a Bloomberg interview on Oct. 14.

Mass air travel

Ong was asked: "Realistically, when do you see the mass travel market finally going ahead?"

Ong said that this can only happen when there is a vaccine that is widely available around the world.

The vaccine would then give people confidence to travel again, he said.

Ong said:

"How long would that take? I can't make a guess, but I would say, minimally, a couple of years."

The aviation industry

During the interview, Ong also discussed the future of Singapore as an aviation hub.

When asked about the fate of SIA when government support runs dry, Ong acknowledged that it is currently a "dire situation".

Explaining that SIA's fate is "very much related" to the fate of Changi Airport's fate, he stressed the need to gradually open borders and revive the air hub.

Development for Terminal 5 has also been suspended, he said, but the next two years will give them time to assess the situation and decide how to proceed.

He said that in Singapore, the number of cases of locally transmitted infections has come under control. Testing capacity has also been ramped up significantly.

Given these factors, he said that we are able to "better strike a balance between travel as well as epidemic control".

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Top photo via Bloomberg video screenshot, Pritam Singh/FB.