An Indonesia cargo plane that returned to base shortly after take-off because of a technical issue skidded off the runway when it landed at a Jakarta airport, the air-navigation operator said. Trigana Air's Boeing 737-400 returned to Halim Perdanakusumah Airport about two minutes after take-off on Saturday (March 20), AirNav spokesman Yohanes Harry Douglas Sirait said. Several flights were diverted from the facility to Soekarno Hatta Airport in Banten, West Java, because the plane was blocking runways. The National Transportation Safety Committee has started an investigation into the incident, according to Sirait.<br/>
unaligned
Mexico’s Viva Aerobus airline said Thursday that the front landing gear on one of its passenger jets collapsed while the plane was preparing for takeoff but no one was injured. The company said all passengers were evacuated safely. The carrier flies only Aerobus jets. The airline said the A320 jet went nose-down because “when aligning to the runway prior to takeoff, the nose landing gear collapsed.” It said the incident was being investigated by the manufacturer and aviation authorities. The flight was scheduled to take off from the Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta, bound for the northern city of Monterrey.<br/>
El Al has reached a conditional agreement with the government on an alternative funding scheme, after the airline spent several months trying to negotiate a state-backed loan from local banks. El Al and its Sun D’Or airline operation have detailed the financing pact under which the Israeli state will pay $210m for the supply of flight tickets, in advance, for personnel in the country’s aviation security system. In return the two carriers will carry out flights for aviation security workers, to enable them to move between facilities, and bear the costs involved. An initial sum of 450m shekels ($136m) will be transferred to the company within two days of the agreement’s entry into force, El Al says. At the same time another 118m shekels will be placed in trust to meet obligations for pensions and severance pay to workers affected by new collective agreements, while the balance will be transferred once the company has made certain other payments to terminated employees.<br/>
The Rwandan government is in "final talks" with Qatar Airways (QR, Doha Hamad Int'l) over the sale of a 49% stake in RwandAir, Rwanda's Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Uzziel Ndagijimana has said. Eager to invest in untapped markets, the Gulf carrier has been courting the East African state since 2019 over its upcoming Bugesera International Airport project, set to open next year, as well as the state-owned airline. "We are in the final stages of negotiations, and the carrier will be stronger due to the larger number of aircraft and greater resources," Ndagijimana told Jeune Afrique, without elaborating. The minister conceded that while Rwandair was not a profitable airline, it was a significant economic driver enabling tourism and trade. The airline's 2019 accounts lodged with the US DoT in February show it registered an overall loss of US$26.2m in 2019 against revenue of US$221.4m. Its loss in 2018 amounted to US$61.9m. So far, its only profit was in 2014 with a modest US$2.82m surplus.<br/>