Singapore Airlines' website crash amid surge in flight demand: Report

Singapore Airlines Ltd’s website was temporarily down over the weekend and travel agencies are seeing a surge in demand for flights after the city-state announced a plan to start quarantine-free travel with more countries as early as next week. 
 
Inquiries jumped more than five times the usual on Chan Brothers Travel’s website, according to the travel agent’s senior marketing communications manager Jeremiah Wong. South Korea and European countries are among the favourite destinations, he said.
 
“Demand has been overwhelming,” Wong said. “Singaporeans are travel-starved and they are really looking forward to an overseas holiday and some of them may think this is long overdue.”
 
Singapore Airlines said it had seen “very high demand” for flights and may take longer to respond to queries from customers. Fares on some travel lane routes have increased, the carrier’s website shows. The airline’s shares jumped as much as 9.6 per cent on Monday, their biggest gain in 11 months.
 
“Our website temporarily experienced technical issues for a few minutes on October 9,” a spokesperson for the airline said. “Customers have since been able to access the Singapore Airlines website and check on our flight schedules and book flights.”
 
The company’s website shows direct flights from Singapore to Los Angeles for S$2,364 ($1,747) in the vaccinated travel lane, compared with S$1,519 for those that involve a leg not under the agreement. 
 
Singapore has moved away from a Covid-Zero approach and is opening its borders to several countries including the US and UK, backed by its high vaccination rate — more than 80 per cent of the population is fully inoculated against the virus.
 
Transport Minister S Iswaran said on Monday evening that unvaccinated children aged 12 or less will be allowed to use the travel lanes.
 
The government on Saturday expanded its list of countries to qualify for quarantine-free travel to nine more places. Vaccinated travellers from the US, the UK, France, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Denmark will be allowed in without having to quarantine from October 19. Those from South Korea will be able to visit via a so-called vaccinated travel lane from November 15. Singapore started similar arrangements with Germany and Brunei last month.
 
Singapore also halved the number of tests that people arriving need to take to two from four, which has made travel more affordable, Wong said.
 
More capacity could be added, Iswaran said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Monday morning. Travel routes with other countries including Australia, New Zealand and Japan are also being considered, he said.

Sydney tastes freedom after 107 days

Six million people in Sydney exited more than three months of lockdown on Monday. The New South Wales state had been one of the world’s most prominent success stories in containing Covid-19, before it fell under some of its strictest stay-at-home orders as an outbreak of the delta variant hit in June. 
 

Residents of the state who have received both doses of the Covid vaccine were on Monday again allowed to start visiting non-essential retail stores, pubs and gyms, with capacity limits. The government eased lockdown measures once 70 per cent of people over age 16 were fully vaccinated.
 

More freedoms will be introduced later this month once the threshold crosses 80 per cent, and there will be a further lifting for December 1 that will include people who are not fully vaccinated.
 

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on Sunday that he’s in talks with the NSW government in an effort to “accelerate” a plan to open international travel, including looking at home quarantine for vaccinated Australians wanting to return to the country via Sydney. While Morrison didn’t give a timeline for when the border might reopen, News.com.au reported that the date being eyed was November 1. “There’s a long journey in front of our state,” NSW state premier Dominic Perrottet told reporters. (Bloomberg)