Flight bookings for Singapore travel spike before halt of VTL ticket sales in December

RECENT data showed there was a surge in flight bookings from and to Singapore on the day the Republic announced the suspension of ticket sales for its Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) scheme, as travellers rushed to beat the halt.

Ticketing data provider ForwardKeys noted that outbound ticket sales jumped to over 4 times the daily average of the previous week, while inbound more than doubled on Dec 22, after Singapore announced on that day the suspension of VTL ticket sales until Jan 21, when the quota would be halved.

All top 10 source markets for the Republic registered a substantial, double-digit drop in bookings over the previous week, with the exception of Hong Kong (a non-VTL territory with an 8 per cent drop) and the United Arab Emirates (a proposed VTL destination which has since been deferred and rose 20 per cent). The remaining 8 posted declines of between 26 per cent and 83 per cent.