Follow us on Telegram for the latest updates: https://t.me/mothershipsg

Following a bold prediction from International Air Transport Association (Iata) chief Alexandre de Juniac comes similar sentiments from Minister of Transport Ong Ye Kung.

That is, that personal travel being a possibility later this year.

In an interview with Money FM 89.3 on Mar. 12, Ong shared that safe travel corridors for vaccinated passengers from countries with low to moderate infection rates may happen in the second half of this year, as Singapore continues to look into ways to open up for international air travel.

"Four snorkels" for travel revival

Describing Changi as a "lung" in Singapore's travel sphere, Ong explained that "four snorkels" would be needed to revive an industry currently "underwater".

These "four snorkels" would help in "replacing" stay-home notices (SHN) and other quarantine measures, requirements Ong felt would kill interest to come to Singapore.

"Nobody is going to come to Singapore and stay [for] 14 days," he told radio DJ Elliott Danker.

First would be testing travellers, for example in the morning and at night, so that they could potentially be allowed to "move freely" in between.

Another method would be to restrict their movement while in the country, to minimise interactions with the community. He cited Connect@Changi, which welcomed its first international travellers earlier this month, as a good example of creating a "bubble within a bubble" for potential travellers.

Identifying places that have a handle on the problem and opening up our country to theirs, like we did for Australia, New Zealand, and China, would be the third way, Ong said, given that the scheme has not led to community infections here.

The final strategy would be what has been and still is "changing the game", vaccinations.

Combining measures to increase effectiveness

While he shares the same view as de Juniac on the return of travel in the second half of the year, Ong was careful to add that this remained very much "a guess", and that Singaporeans should not expect a "V-shape recovery" for the aviation sector.

He noted, however, that while it was difficult to know what curveballs might be thrown next, that "all these different measures, plus vaccination, is going to have an impact".

The key was to not let each of these four "snorkels" operate in isolation, but to combine them for the greatest effectiveness.

For example, Singapore could open up to travellers from places with moderate Covid-19 infection rates by combining testing and ongoing vaccination programmes. This could possibly allow for safe travel corridors in the second half of the year.

Ong also said that air travel bubbles – where the "snorkels" of identifying a safe place is combined with testing – can help create safe openings, although unfortunately, Singapore is "currently the only safe place in the world opening up to others". Ong added:

"If only others start to do it, then we'll have a bubble, you have reciprocity, you can start to travel. And I hope some time this year we can do that."

You can find the full radio interview here:

Top image via Money FM 89.3 Youtube