HONG KONG • The shelving of the keenly anticipated Hong Kong-Singapore travel bubble shows just how delicate the process of reopening borders is - even for places that have largely contained the coronavirus.
The cities' Covid-19 outbreaks are far less intense than in places such as the United States and Europe, but a recent uptick in cases in Hong Kong proved enough to delay the start of the air corridor between the two financial hubs by two weeks, dashing the plans of those who had booked flights that were due to begin on Sunday.
Hong Kong yesterday reported 73 new Covid-19 cases, the highest daily figure since Aug 16 when the city reported 74 cases.
Many of the latest cases were linked to 14 dance clubs, including the Wan Chai Starlight Dance Club and Dance Culture in Causeway Bay. Hong Kong's total number of confirmed infections stood at 5,702, with 108 related deaths.
Earlier yesterday, Secretary for Food and Health Sophia Chan said the government was reviewing the need to tighten further social distancing rules, including closing businesses that involved activities with a high risk of infection, the South China Morning Post reported.
The travel bubble between Hong Kong and Singapore had been heralded as a pandemic world-first, allowing people to travel to and from the two places without the need for quarantine.
The launch will be deferred for two weeks, and a new launch date will be announced later.
Hong Kong and Singapore had agreed that the bubble would be suspended for two weeks if the seven-day moving average of the daily number of unlinked Covid-19 cases is more than five in either city.
That was not even met in Hong Kong before last Saturday's decision, but the recent jump in infections there was enough for the authorities to apply the brakes.
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst James Teo said: "Once more contact tracing is done in Hong Kong and most cases become linked, even if new daily cases remain high, unlinked cases may start falling below five a day consistently, allowing the travel bubble to start."
While in-country containment of the coronavirus has resulted in the world's 10 busiest domestic air travel routes now all being in Asia, according to OAG Aviation Worldwide, Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific Airways and Singapore Airlines continue to struggle as they have no domestic travel market to fall back on.
Cathay's shares slid 4.2 per cent yesterday, their biggest loss in two months, while Singapore Airlines fell less than 1 per cent.
Even if the Hong Kong-Singapore corridor opens, the boost to the two aviation hubs will be limited, said professor of transport Rico Merkert at The University of Sydney Business School.
Singapore Airlines and Cathay will continue to struggle because they cannot funnel onto the route taken by those travellers who would normally arrive from Europe and the US, he said.
"Without that feeder traffic, those bubbles will, at best, be limited to the local population."
Air traffic globally is expected to be at just 33 per cent of last year's levels at the end of this year, and "hopefully" at 50 per cent to 60 per cent by the end of next year, according to Mr Alexandre de Juniac, director-general of the International Air Transport Association.
BLOOMBERG
