Continuing to untangle itself from the legacy of Covid, Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd. offered its junior pilots the chance to redeploy to low-cost unit HK Express where they can work as first officers for about two years. Successful candidates will then be able to rejoin Cathay as first officers, the airline said in a statement Wednesday. It didn’t provide details on salaries. HK Express needs more frontline staff like pilots and cabin crew after returning to pre-Covid flying frequency. “This arrangement will further support our growth trajectory,” CEO Jeanette Mao said in the statement. The Cathay group doesn’t expect to return to pre-pandemic passenger capacity levels until the end of 2024. It aims to be back at 70% by the end of this year. <br/>
oneworld
A lawyer for Russia on Wednesday dismissed Ukraine's account of the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 in World Court hearings earlier this week as "fiction". Ukraine accuses Russia before the UN's top court of violating a UN anti-terrorism treaty by equipping and funding pro-Russian forces, including militias who shot down Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, killing all 298 passengers and crew in July 2014. Last November, a Dutch court found that Russia had "overall control" over the separatist forces and had supplied the BUK missile system which was used by militias to shoot down the plane. Ukraine repeated the Dutch court findings in its case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), but Russia's lawyer Michael Swainston dismissed it as "fiction". "This did not happen, no BUK Telar came from Russia," he told the court on the final day of hearings. In its case at the ICJ, also known as the World Court, Kyiv also claims Russia breached a U.N. anti-discrimination treaty by trying to erase the culture of ethnic Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. In its final submissions on Monday, Ukraine asked the ICJ to find Moscow guilty of breaching its treaty obligations and order it to pay reparations. Russia denies systematic human rights abuses in Ukrainian territory that it occupies. It also says it has met its obligations under the U.N. treaty against financing terrorism.<br/>