The global airline sector may look gloomy with carriers hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, but a Hong Kong aviation investor sees light at the end of the tunnel with investment opportunities in the industry. Victor Chu, the founder and chairman of First Eastern Investment Group, is well-known for his early investments in China, which trace back to 1988. More recently, Chu, who sits on the board of European jet manufacturer Airbus, co-founded Japanese budget airline Peach Aviation, which launched in 2011 as a joint venture with ANA Holdings and the Innovation Network Corp. of Japan, a government-backed investment fund. When asked whether he is optimistic on the outlook for the industry, he replied: "If you're able to survive, the answer is yes... Luckily for Peach, ANA and JAL in Japan, we will survive because we have domestic business, so we are cushioned to some extent." Story has more.<br/>
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The boss of Australian airline Qantas has said that "governments are going to insist" on vaccines for international travellers. Coronavirus vaccines are seen as crucial to reviving an industry that saw worldwide passenger numbers fall 75.6% last year. CE Alan Joyce said many governments were talking about vaccination as "a condition of entry". Even if they weren't, he thought the airline should enforce its own policy. "We have a duty of care to our passengers and to our crew, to say that everybody in that aircraft needs to be safe," Joyce said. He believes that would justify changing the terms and conditions on which tickets are booked. And Joyce thinks passengers would be willing to accept the change. "The vast majority of our customers think this is a great idea - 90% of people that we've surveyed think it should be a requirement for people to be vaccinated to travel internationally."<br/>
Qantas has lost the first round of its legal bid to push back the start of defecting new Velocity CEO Nick Rohrlach. The NSW Supreme Court rejected the flag carrier’s attempt to hear the case in Australia, and not in Singapore where Rohrlach signed a contract in 2015. Earlier this month, Qantas announced it would take legal action against ex-Jetstar Japan co-CEO after it emerged he previously accepted a senior role on its own loyalty scheme. The business claims it had already shared highly sensitive information while onboarding Rohrlach and is insisting he serve his six-month gardening leave, which would delay his start date from mid-May until 18 September. The case is complicated because Rohrlach signed the contract in Singapore, and also applied for anti-suit protection there, too, to stop Qantas from enforcing the extended start date.<br/>
A potential loophole that could allow a mutant Covid-19 strain to penetrate Hong Kong’s borders will be plugged from midnight on Friday, with the government tightening the “closed-loop” arrangements for quarantine-exempted local aircrew. The government is removing the provision permitting some individuals to wait for their coronavirus test results at airport hotels, a decision mainly affecting Cathay Pacific pilots, cabin crew, and foreign airlines. Starting this weekend, all inbound travellers, including those with exemptions, will have to stay in the confines of Hong Kong International Airport, and will only be allowed to proceed to their hotel once they test negative. Government health experts on Thursday night said the city needed to further crack down on the risk of transmission involving mutant variants to ensure there would be no local spread into the community. Industry sources warned of a possible impact on foreign airlines, because requiring flight crews to stay at the airport would deny them rest and could disrupt flight schedules due to short layover times in Hong Kong.<br/>