The Singapore High Commission (SHC) in London announced that it is assisting Singaporeans to fly home from United Kingdom amidst the COVID-19 outbreak that has countries barring international flights around the world.
The SHC informed in a Facebook post that it has struck an exclusive ticket arrangement with Singapore Airlines (SIA) for those in UK to travel back to Singapore from 19-31 March 2020.
However, it cautioned that this was subject to the availability, as the main priority was for students.
On Tuesday (17 March), the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) have encouraged Singaporean students studying overseas to consider returning home soon, given the rapid increase of Covid-19 cases around the world. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, there was an estimated number of 6,750 Singaporean students pursuing tertiary education in the UK for the year 2018/2019.
Singaporean citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs) in UK may register their interest at http://go.gov.sg/flyinghome2020 and refer to the detailed instructions within the page.
On having made the application, SIA would contact each passenger within 24 hours before the allocated flight. The flight carrier would endeavour to provide more lead-time, wherever possible, wrote SHC.
According to SHC, SIA advises travellers who intend to return immediately, to head to the airport standby for a flight on the day itself. However, SIA will not be able to guarantee everyone on standby that they will be assured of the seats.
The airline reserves the right to put passengers on alternative flights if operational contingencies ensue. In the event of unexpected overwhelming demand, SIA would arrange additional flights in April.
SIA has also requested future travellers not to overload the site with additional applications as it would end up in duplication and clogging up the system.