Hong Kong has banned Singapore Airlines from operating flights from its home base to the city for 14 days, starting on Saturday, for breaching Covid-19 rules.

The ban was invoked after one passenger who arrived in Hong Kong via Singapore Airlines flight SQ882 on Wednesday was confirmed as infected, while three passengers failed to comply with requirements specified under the Prevention and Control of Disease (Regulation of Cross-boundary Conveyances and Travellers) Regulation, according to a press release issued by the Department of Health on Friday afternoon.

The department did not specify what requirements they had contravened.

Passenger flights from the city state to Hong Kong operated by Singapore Airlines will be banned from Saturday until April 16.

Hong Kong requires incoming passengers to provide information about their health and travel history, including whether they have visited any countries designated high risk by the government. They must also provide proof of a booking at a designated hotel for the full length of their quarantine.

Passengers from high-risk countries, such as Britain, Indonesia and the Philippines, are also required to provide proof of a negative Covid-19 test before boarding.

Under the rules, any failure by a traveller on a given flight to provide the correct information – combined with the presence of at least one coronavirus-positive passenger on board – will trigger a two-week ban on the carrier.

An airline can also have a particular route banned for 14 days if at least five passengers on a single flight are identified as infected on arrival, or if two consecutive flights from a location each have three or more passengers found to have contracted the coronavirus. However, positive cases detected during hotel quarantine do not count towards the total – only those discovered upon arrival.

The most recent two-week ban was on Cathay Pacific flights from Manila to Hong Kong between March 15 and 28, and was triggered after five passengers on flight CX906 tested positive on arrival.

The compulsory quarantine period for arrivals from three low-risk nations – namely Australia, New Zealand and Singapore – will be cut from 21 days to 14 days with seven days of self-monitoring and a compulsory test on the 19th day beginning on April 9.

With the fourth wave of Covid-19 showing signs of abating in Hong Kong and a vaccination drive under way, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Edward Yau Tang-wah revealed earlier this week that the government had sent a new proposal to Singapore to restore a planned travel bubble while writing to six other countries about resuming talks on such plans.

The previous travel bubble arrangement was cancelled at the eleventh hour, just a day before it was set to launch last November.