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The Ministry of Transport (MOT), Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) and Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has released a joint statement in response to media queries regarding flights between Singapore and India.

According to the statement, India has banned all international passenger flights to and from Singapore since March 2020.

Singapore Airlines can only operate cargo flights to India.

Flights to repatriate Indian citizens

The only passenger flights between Singapore and India are Vande Bharat flights chartered by the Indian government to bring back Indian citizens.

The Vande Bharat Mission is an evacuation programme initiated by the Indian government to repatriate Indian citizens who are stranded abroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Indian government also allows those who need to return to Singapore to take the outbound flight because these are the only available passenger flights into Singapore.

The flights are operated only by Indian carriers designated by the Indian government, with the approval of the Singapore government.

The ministries added all of such flights operate out of Terminal 1.

180 departing Singapore each day

There are, on average, 180 departing passengers on the flights back to India each day.

There are also about 25 arrivals to Singapore each day, with the vast majority being returning Singapore citizens and permanent residents.

21-day Stay Home Notice

All arriving passengers at Changi Airport are subject to two Covid-19 tests on arrival:

• Antigen Rapid Tests (ART)
• Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test

The arriving passengers are escorted from disembarkation through to their dedicated transport to go to the Stay Home Notice (SHN) facilities for 21 days.

Top image from Unsplash.