A flight crew's lack of awareness of a runway closure at San Francisco was the probable cause behind a near-miss involving an Air Canada Airbus A320 that almost landed on a taxiway on 7 July 2017, says the US NTSB. The flight crew also failed to manually tune the instrument landing system frequency while on approach, and both pilots reported feeling fatigued - factors that contributed to the incident, said NTSB investigators in a board meeting as they reached the final stages of the investigation into the incident. The Air Canada A320 executed a go-around when the crew realised it was aligned with the taxiway instead of runway 28R. At that time, four other aircraft were on taxiway C preparing to take off, and the A320 overflew them. NTSB investigators have noted that the A320 was at one point between "10 and 20 feet" away from another aircraft. "I do not want to sensationalise it, but this was a very close call," says NTSB chairman Robert Sumwalt during the board meeting. No one was injured in the incident involving flight AC759, and there was no damage to the A320 which had carried 135 passengers and five crew members.<br/>
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SAA has dismissed local media reports that it plans to sell off parts of its business to raise funds after banks declined to loan the cash-strapped airline more money. Reports in a South African newspaper had suggested the airline’s cargo operations and catering business, Air Chefs, had been earmarked for sale. State-owned SAA has been in financial difficulties for some years and has only survived through several infusions of cash from the government. “It is not true that we have decided to dispose of some of our assets based on the fact that the banks are reluctant to lend more money to SAA,” an airline spokesman said. “We still have guarantees available to us and [have] managed to extend the maturity date of existing loans to end of March 2019. While the time may be limited, the shareholder [the government] still has a window of opportunities to work with us to find solutions to our capital requirements. For assets to be disposed, there are certain legislative requirements which must be dispensed with for shareholder approval to be met. Claims made in the media are unsubstantiated and have ignored the realities and compliance requirements that must be satisfied.”<br/>
The Tourism Authority of Thailand has joined with THAI to promote 20 routes in 10 provinces nationwide in Q4 2018 as part of a plan to increase revenue at the flag carrier. The move is a response to recent instructions from the government, which wants state enterprises such as the TAT, Krungthai Bank and Airports of Thailand to use the tourism sector to boost income for THAI. TAT governor Yuthasak Supasorn said the tourism campaign, arranged under the theme "Amazing Thailand Go Local", will be promoted in destinations where THAI and THAI Smile fly. The 20 routes are mostly to secondary provinces such as Chiang Rai, Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani and Yala. Others are in big provinces but can connect easily with second-tier destinations.<br/>