Dhaka: Australian carrier Qantas has delayed its plans to route its London services via Singapore until at least mid-June over concerns regarding the complexity of transit passenger testing requirements at Changi Airport.
Earlier, the airline planned to resume its Singapore stopover on daily Boeing 787 flights between Sydney and London from March 27, 2022, but now has announced to route these services via Darwin NT instead.
“Until June 2022, Qantas will continue to operate the Sydney-London flight through Darwin rather than Singapore to simplify passenger transit procedures,” said the airline in a notice.
All travellers transiting through Changi Airport from Category 1 to 3 countries, including Australia and the United Kingdom, must have a negative pre-departure Covid-19 PCR or ART test within two days of their flight departure, according to current ICA standards.
However, since January 7, no pre-departure testing has been necessary for fully vaccinated tourists travelling from Australia to the UK.
Hence, routing the daily Qantas London-bound QF1 flight through Singapore would impose the unnecessary burden of a pre-departure test for all passengers to transit at Changi Airport.
From June 19, 2022, Qantas will continue to load its daily QF1/2 flight from Sydney to London via Changi Airport.