The website for Singapore airlines was temporarily brought down over the weekend as travel agencies experienced a surge in demand for travel after the country relaxed restrictions on quarantines with several countries globally.
Vaccinated travellers from the U.S., U.K., France, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Spain and Denmark will be allowed in without having to quarantine from Oct 19th, including the US and UK.
“Our website temporarily experienced technical issues for a few minutes on Oct. 9,” a spokesperson for the airline said in response to media queries. “Customers have since been able to access the Singapore Airlines website and check on our flight schedules and book flights.”
The spokesperson said the airline has seen “very high demand” for flights and may take longer to respond to queries from customers.
The relaxation of travel restrictions comes after a successful Vaccine Travel Lane (VTL) trial with Germany and Brunei over the past month. The new VTLs mean up to 3,000 passengers can enter Singapore in a single day.
A related Bloomberg story quoting travel agents said demand for flights have jumped five times since the announcement.
In a similar pattern, travel bookings in the US caused the booking websites of American Airlines, Delta Airlines, Alaska Airlines and United Airlines to go down in April when the country first announced that vaccinated travellers can fly.
Moving into 2022, the easing of travel is expected to grow amongst countries globally and boost the travel and aviation industry. In Asia, airlines are expected to announce more than 500 new routes to cities across the region.
