Travellers who were scheduled to take the inaugural flight today between Singapore and Hong Kong under the air travel bubble arrangement were disappointed after it was deferred yesterday.

Among them was Mr Aaron Wong, 32, who founded frequent flier website MileLion.

He said he was going to check out the travel bubble arrangements, spend three nights in Hong Kong and review the experience. He booked three separate hotels for the purpose.

Mr Wong, whose most recent trip was to Kuala Lumpur in February, said: "I love flying. I (tried the Singapore Airlines dining experiences and tour) but nothing beats the real thing, and the travel bubble was supposed to be that."

Fellow traveller Hendric Tay, 33, founder of travel blog The Travel Intern, was also due to fly to Hong Kong today.

His 24-day trip was meant to be an experience of the travel bubble and to find out the ground situation in the city and write about it for his blog.

He also planned to meet friends based in the territory.

He said yesterday: "I'm disappointed, especially so because in the last couple of days, I had the feeling it might be cancelled. This morning, (there was news) that it was not going to be cancelled.

"But around 5pm, they announced that it was going to be postponed, so it was like a roller coaster of emotions.

Mr Alvin Liu, 41, who is based in Hong Kong, returned here in late September after his mother was hospitalised.

He was due to return to the territory, where his family lives, on Nov 30. That will now have to wait for another two weeks.

Mr Liu, who works in a bank, believes it may be tough to secure a seat then. This is because many travellers who have had their plans deferred, like him, would also be scrambling to secure a flight.

• Additional reporting by Claire Huang