FROM Nov 8, vaccinated travellers from Australia and Switzerland will be welcome in Singapore, and will not need to serve a quarantine, Transport Minister S Iswaran said on Tuesday (Oct 26).

The two countries join an existing 11 that are part of Singapore's vaccinated travel lanes (VTL), as the Republic takes "calibrated" steps to reopen its borders.

"This is still a fraction of the countries that Changi Airport was connected with pre-Covid-19. To rebuild the aviation hub, we will need to steadily restore safe two-way quarantine-free travel with more countries and regions," Iswaran told reporters in a briefing.

"We are in discussions with other partners, including regional neighbours, to reopen safely to each other and restore our close connectivity," he added.

With the additions, the current VTL quota of 3,000 daily arrivals will go up to 4,000, said Iswaran.

Philip Goh, regional vice-president for the Asia-Pacific at the International Air Transport Association (Iata), said the expansion of the list of VTL countries demonstrates growing confidence that vaccination and testing can allow more to travel without quarantine, but he expressed hopes that the quota can ultimately be removed.

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"Such capacity restrictions retard the pace of recovery and are also not optimal for airline capacity utilisation," he said. "The travel and tourism sectors can scale up at speed by the removal of inbound passenger caps and the easing of testing protocol."

During the briefing however, Iswaran said keeping the quota is one way to manage risk, as the higher the volume, the greater the risk considerations.

"But having said that, we are prepared to flex this number up or down," he said.

Under the VTL, fully-vaccinated travellers from these countries need only to undergo a Covid-19 polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test upon arrival in Singapore.

While vaccinated travellers from Singapore are similarly allowed to enter Switzerland without the need for a quarantine, Australia is relaxing its border controls only for fully vaccinated Australian citizens, permanent residents and their immediate families from Nov 8.

Nonetheless, Singapore is the second country that Australia has reopened its borders to, after New Zealand.

In a statement, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) said it expects students and business-pass holders from Singapore to be able to enter Australia after the country has finalised the arrangement for their entry, echoing an earlier announcement by Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Other travellers from Singapore would not be able to travel to Australia until a later stage, CAAS said.

Iswaran said the VTLs will allow the more than 50,000 Singaporeans living in Australia and the over 25,000 Australians living in Singapore to reconnect with their loved ones after nearly two years of physical separation.

"We look forward to doing more with Australia and Australia opening up further, but we also recognise that every country has to make its own assessment based on its own circumstances, both in terms of infection rates, vaccination rates," he said.

"So what we would want to do is make sure that these initial arrangements work well, so that both sides have the confidence to be able to do more, to offer and facilitate travel for a wider group of travellers."

Australia was among Singapore's top 10 markets for annual passenger arrivals at Changi Airport before the Covid-19 pandemic, accounting for about 4 per cent of total arrivals in 2019, said CAAS.

As for Switzerland, CAAS noted that there is a strong business presence of over 1,000 Swiss companies operating in Singapore, including large banks, insurance companies and industry corporates. There are also about 3,000 Swiss expatriates living in Singapore.

Singapore's first VTLs were launched on Sep 8 for Brunei and Germany. This was later extended to 8 other countries in Europe and North America  from Oct 19. The VTL to South Korea will open on Nov 15.

As at Oct 25, 15,099 travellers from the VTL countries had been issued vaccinated travel passes (VTP);  so far, 5,134 VTP holders have entered Singapore. Among them, there were 5 confirmed imported cases of Covid-19.

These VTLs are established at a time Singapore is facing its worst Covid-19 outbreak, with daily new cases exceeding 3,000 almost every day over the past 3 weeks.

Over the last week, two VTL countries, the US and Germany, raised their risk alert for the Republic.

Asked if he is concerned about borders being closed to Singapore, Iswaran said: "This speaks to the very dynamic nature of the virus and the pandemic and how different countries have to constantly evaluate and recalibrate their posture.

"We are no exception to this, and Singapore will have to continue to look at the situation, both domestically but also in our partner countries, as we see how we can open up."

VTL travellers must have remained in one or more of the VTL countries in the last 14 consecutive days prior to departure in Singapore, and they must take a pre-departure test as well as on-arrival test at Changi Airport and self-isolate until their test is confirmed to be negative.

Children aged 12 and below who are not vaccinated will also be allowed to travel on the lane into Singapore if they are accompanied by a VTL-eligible traveller.

Applications for VTPs for travellers from Australia and Switzerland open on Nov 1.

Following the announcement, a Singapore Airlines (SIA) spokesperson said the national carrier's daily service from Zurich into Singapore will operate as a VTL flight; the carrier has designated two daily flights from Melbourne and Sydney as VTL services.

SIA's low-cost carrier Scoot will also operate daily VTL services from Melbourne and four flights a week from Sydney.

So far, the group has announced VTL services from 20 cities.