Without feeder traffic, limited upside in HK-Singapore 'travel bubble'

Even if the secure Hong Kong-Singapore travel corridor opens, the upside to the two Asian aviation hubs will be limited, says Rico Merkert, professor of transport at the University of Sydney’s business school, Bloomberg reports.

Singapore Airlines and Cathay Pacific Airways will continue to struggle because they are not able to funnel onto the route those travelers who would normally arrive from Europe and the U.S., he said.

“Without that feeder traffic, those bubbles will at best be limited to the local population,” Merkert said. “International travel is going to remain a tricky affair.”

Cathay had described the bubble as “a hugely encouraging development and an important first step in the return of regular international air travel to and from Hong Kong,” as well as a “milestone showcase” for other travel bubbles.

“Bubbles provide a little bit of incremental additional international traffic in the interim period until the pandemic ends,” Sobie Aviation founder Brendan Sobie said on Bloomberg Television, adding that the impact of the bubble plan is mostly symbolic.

A full recovery in air traffic will still take a few years, even with a vaccine, though bubbles will help get the process moving, he said.

An increase in cases in either Singapore or Hong Kong was always a risk for those who booked tickets when the bubble plan was announced on November 11. It’s still possible to travel between the two cities, but a mandatory quarantine applies on both sides.

“That is the main deterrent, I have no interest in sitting in a hotel room for two weeks -- it’s not healthy,” said Mungo Paterson, 42, a Briton living in Hong Kong who booked a December  7 flight to Singapore shortly after the bubble plan was made public.

“I was excited when they announced it, I thought ‘here we go,’” said Paterson, who planned to go to Singapore for work and to see his sister and her family. “I’m now holding off confirming until December 2. I think there’s a 50:50 chance the flight will happen.”

Cathay’s traffic numbers for October slumped by 98.6 percent from a year earlier to just 38,541 passengers. Singapore Airlines carried 35,500 passengers last month, down by 98.2 percent.

The Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble was shelved as a result of a resurgence of the coronavirus in Hong Kong.

It was heralded as a pandemic world-first, but now authorities are reviewing a new launch date.

The two sides agreed that the 'bubble' would be suspended if local infections exceeded five on a rolling seven-day average. That wasn’t even met in Hong Kong before the decision, but the recent jump in infections there was enough for authorities to apply the brakes.