Singapore Airlines to expand VTL network to India and 26 other countries

Singapore Airlines and its low-cost carrier Scoot will expand its Vaccinated Travel Lane (VTL) network from March 16 to connect to 66 cities in 27 countries, including India. VTL allows quarantine-free travel to Singapore for fully vaccinated travellers.

“New VTL services will be added progressively to selected cities in Southeast Asia and India, as well as Athens, from March 16, 2022,” the airlines’ parent company SIA Group said. It said more non-VTL flights will also be converted to VTL flights for certain destinations and a total of 66 cities in 27 countries will be added.

Reporting its operating results for February, SIA Group said passenger capacity fell slightly to 44 per cent of pre-COVID-19 levels. This is 2 per cent lower than in January. Passenger capacity is expected to reach around 57 per cent of what it was pre-COVID-19 by April this year.

The group passenger load factor was 39.1 per cent in February, a 0.9 per cent drop from the month before. The figure is a 29.4 per cent rise from the same time last year. VTL ticket sales remained subjected to a 50 per cent reduction in arrival quotas in the first half of February.

“On February 16, 2022, Singapore announced that it would remove the 50 per cent cap, and progressively increase the VTL quota for daily arrivals from 5,000 to 15,000, by March 4, 2022,” said SIA Group. As at the end of February, Singapore Airlines served 63 destinations, with Scoot flying to 37 destinations.

(Source: Channel News Asia)