Ordinarily, if you see hordes of Singaporeans gathered in one area, it’s either outside a store that’s having a sale or a newly-opened fast food restaurant.
Sometimes, Singaporeans see a queue and join it without even knowing what the heck it’s for.
So, if you passed by the former Shuqun Secondary School on Wednesday morning (26 Aug) and saw a flock of Singaporeans, you might have assumed that the school started selling Uniqlo’s AIRism masks.
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In reality, the huge crowd of residents had gone there for a Covid-19 test.
Reason for the Crowds of People Who Turned Up in Jurong to Do COVID-19 Testing for a Flight to China
According to The Straits Times, the large group of people at the former school were actually passengers who were heading to China.
Last Friday (21 Aug), the Chinese embassy announced on its website that all travellers from Singapore to China will have to take a Covid-19 test within five days before their flight to the country from 28 Aug.
However, the Chinese embassy website is not exactly the first site you visit in the morning, nor the one you check before sleeping.
So, passengers on Flight TR100 bound for Guangzhou on 30 Aug were only informed of the requirement on Tuesday (25 Aug) in an urgent email sent by Scoot.
Fortunately for them, the email said that testing arrangements have been made by the relevant authorities and that the requirements “must be strictly adhered to”
Passengers were instructed to go to the former Shuqun Secondary School in Jurong East between 9am and 10.30am on Wednesday (26 Aug), as there was a screening centre there.
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Only those with tickets of flights operated by Scoot and China Southern Airlines to Chinese cities were allowed to enter the premises.
In the end, more than 200 people turned up on Wednesday morning to get tested, reported ST.
Must Pay For Tests
The Covid-19 test isn’t free, of course. While they didn’t have to pay immediately at the testing centre, passengers will have to cough up $186 before Scoot releases their results to them.
Scoot said it requires a turnaround time of 48 hours for the test results, so passengers who didn’t adhere to the stipulated time slot may have trouble getting on their flight.
Once passengers test negative for the virus, they’ll have to submit their results to the embassy via email.
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The Chinese embassy said on its website it will take at least one working day for test results to be verified.
Once verified, passengers will be issued a certified health declaration form with an official embassy seal, and they’ll be allowed to fly.
Scoot Apologises For Sending Urgent Email to Customers Who Hadn’t Booked Any Flights
Scoot, who must have panicked after seeing the testing requirement on the Chinese embassy’s website, ended up sending its urgent email to customers who didn’t even book any flights.
Several Scoot customers (including me) received multiple emails (some up to 62) from the budget airline reminding them that they need a negative Covid-19 certificate before their flight to Guangzhou.
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While some complained, others were happy to learn that they’d be able to travel for free.
But that isn’t what happened, of course.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Scoot clarified that the email was only meant for passengers booked on their TR100 flight.
The airline expressed its sincerest apologies for the oversight.
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Scoot later explained what happened in a comment on its original post:
“We would like to update that we have further investigated the situation and found that this erroneous email arose due to human error, and was not a data security or hacking incident. It was erroneously sent to a distribution list containing customers who have travelled with Scoot in the past, or who have future bookings with Scoot.”
Scoot said it takes this incident “very seriously” and will “conduct an internal review looking into how to further strengthen our processes”.
It also assured customers that no sensitive personal information was leaked.
Travelling now simply isn’t as fun as it used to be.
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