Singaporean passengers and crew of Scoot flight to fly home on Sunday after quarantine in Hangzhou

The Singaporean passengers and crew of Scoot flight TR 188 are scheduled to return home on Sunday (Jan 26) night, after spending more than a day being quarantined in Hangzhou, China.

The Straits Times understands that Scoot flight TR 5001 left Changi Airport at about noon and should arrive in Hangzhou before 5pm.

It will return with the nine Singaporean passengers, including a four-year-old boy, and 11 Scoot staff.

It is understood that the plane will be leaving Hangzhou in the evening and land in Singapore after 10pm, at the earliest.

The return flight is expected to take about five to six hours.

After TR 188 landed on Friday (Jan 25) in Hangzhou, a male passenger was taken for further blood tests.

All 314 passengers on the flight were isolated at Hangzhou International Airport.

On Saturday, Scoot said that due to the temporary suspension of all public transport networks in China's Hubei province, the carrier had cancelled all flights between Singapore and Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, from Jan 23 to Feb 2.

Those who had booked these cancelled flights were given the option to re-route their flight to other destinations within China, Macau or Hong Kong, or get a full refund.

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Scoot making arrangements to bring back Singaporean passengers, crew quarantined in Hangzhou
Scoot making arrangements to bring back Singaporean passengers, crew quarantined in Hangzhou

Out of the 314 passengers on flight TR 188, about 110 were passengers who had originally planned to fly to Wuhan but chose the option of re-routing their flight to Hangzhou. They included people who came from Wuhan.

Upon landing, these 110 passengers had to undergo enhanced health screening at Hangzhou International Airport, and from that pool, one had to be sent for further blood tests, said the Scoot spokesman.

Passengers of the flight whom ST spoke to said that they spent almost 13 hours in the Hangzhou airport before they were taken to a hotel in the city to be quarantined.

These passengers said they were given blankets, food and water by the authorities while they were quarantined at the airport.

A passenger said that in the hotel they were put up in later, they were given coats and other warm clothing as the heating was not working.

One of the Singaporean passengers who was isolated is the father of a four-year-old boy. They were both travelling to Hangzhou to be with family and celebrate Chinese New Year.

The man, who declined to be named, said that he was frustrated that Scoot did not inform the other passengers about how TR 188 had people from Wuhan on board.

Another passenger of TR 188, a 52-year-old French man who works in Singapore and was travelling to his wife in Hangzhou, shared similar frustrations.

The man, who spoke to ST on the phone from the hotel he was quarantined at, said that Scoot should have informed other passengers about the passengers from Wuhan.

"I had earlier discussed with my wife if I should even travel to China to be with her, but we looked at the number of cases and Hangzhou did not seem too risky, so I decided to take the flight," said the man, who did not want to be named.

"But it is a different level of risk when you are stuck in an airplane with more than 100 people who have possibly been infected. If I had known, I would not have gone on the flight."

When asked if he would be able to take the flight that is coming back to Singapore, the French man, who has been living and working in Singapore for a decade, said that he was not sure and that he was in touch with the French Embassy in China.

He has not been able to see his wife.

The Wuhan coronavirus continues to spread, killing 56 people and infecting almost 2,000 people in China.

It has also spread to other parts of the world, including Singapore, the United States, Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Australia, France, Canada, Nepal and Pakistan.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.