SINGAPORE. Around 35 flights a day are being screened for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) at Singapore Changi airport as they arrive from China, Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Nurses, wearing face masks, have been on constant duty at the airport since Monday. In their first 12 hours of duty, they sent seven suspected SARS cases to the hospital, according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.
After a record year in 2002, when passenger numbers climbed +3.2% to 29.0 million, total numbers travelling through Changi have fallen sharply since the outbreak of war in Iraq but more particularly the SARS alert.
As reported earlier on The Moodie Report, flag carrier Singapore Airlines has slashed its services to Asia, Europe and North America by almost 14%, cutting 125 flights a week. The number of visitor arrivals in the first three weeks of March was -9% lower than the same period last year, according to Associated Press.
The airline has cut more flights now than after September 11, 2001, said airline spokesman Geoff Breusch. Associated Press (AP) reports said that around a quarter of the people at Changi airport were wearing masks on Wednesday, including the woman at the information counter. “Cleaners were busy wiping down counters and railings with disinfectant, a procedure now repeated four times a day,” AP said.
TFWA earlier this week said it has no plans to postpone or cancel next month’s TFWA Asia Pacific exhibition and conference in Singapore, though it is monitoring the situation daily.TFWA – and would-be exhibitors and delegates – will be pleased to see the zeal with which the Singaporean authorities are addressing the crisis.
Although neighbouring Malaysia has managed to avoid the SARS outbreak, daily traffic through Kuala Lumpur International airport has fallen at least -3% and Malaysia Airways was also cutting back the number of flights to outbreak areas, said Transport Minister Ling Liong Sik.
