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Passengers travelling via Singapore in international transit will no longer need a pre-flight COVID-19 test from 22 February 2022.
Singapore has also relaxed its requirements for passengers entering the country quarantine-free on a Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) flight.
Changes to Singapore transit rules
Currently, anyone flying through Singapore in international transit is required to get a pre-departure COVID-19 PCR or rapid antigen test within 2 days before the flight. But from 11.59pm on 21 February, this will only be required of passengers travelling to Singapore who wish to enter the country under the VTL arrangement.
The change applies to flights that land in Singapore after 11.59pm on 21 February 2022.
Singaporean travel website MileLion also says that transit passengers arriving in Singapore from Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK will no longer be held in a holding pen Transit Holding Area from this date. This has now been confirmed by the Singaporean government, which is great news is the current transit experience for passengers arriving from these countries is really not great!
Transit passengers arriving from “Restricted Category” countries as classified by the Singapore Ministry of Health will still need to wait in a Transit Holding Area at Changi Airport going forward. But there are currently no countries in this category.
Changes to Singapore entry requirements
From 22 February 2022, there will also be some positive changes to Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) entry requirements. A key change is that the on-arrival PCR or express LAMP test will be replaced with a ~$15 rapid antigen test to be completed within 24 hours of arrival. Previously, passengers would have to pay between ~$125-200 for the on-arrival test and then isolate at their hotel until receiving a negative result.
People arriving in Singapore will also no longer be required to self-administer rapid antigen tests on days 2-7 after arrival, if they wish to leave their accommodation.
In addition, passenger arriving on VTL flights will now only need to consider their 7-day travel history instead of where they have been in the past 14 days. Passengers on VTL flights may only have been in approved countries for that amount of time before boarding their flights.
You can read more about the current rules on the Singapore government’s Safe Travel website.
Six new VTL countries
From 25 February 2022, four new countries will be added to Singapore’s VTL program:
- Hong Kong
- United Arab Emirates
- Qatar
- Saudi Arabia
Then, on 4 March 2022, an additional two VTL countries will be added:
- Philippines
- Israel
All in all, these changes are great news for travellers and will make it significantly easier (and cheaper) to travel to Singapore than was the case even just a few weeks ago.
Qantas will run its Sydney-London flights via Darwin until June
Last Tuesday, Qantas announced it would continue operating its “kangaroo route” flights from Sydney and Melbourne to London via Darwin until at least mid-June.
These flights have been operating through Darwin since they resumed in November 2021. But this was only ever planned to be temporary and the Darwin stopover was originally going to end in March.
The Melbourne-London flight normally operates via Perth, while Sydney-London is normally via Singapore. Qantas cited the continued WA border closure and “testing requirements for passengers transiting through Singapore” for its recent decision to continue re-routing these flights via Darwin for several more months.
Given the complexity of transiting via third countries, Qantas’ non-stop flights from Australia to London have been popular with passengers. But with Singapore now removing testing requirements for transit passengers, this should make things a little easier for Qantas passengers when the airline resumes Airbus A380 flights from Sydney to London via Singapore in June.
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