"US may halt millennium flights" 9/10/99

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[reprinted for research/educational purposes]

Financial Times (London); Friday - September 10, 1999

LEAD STORY Title: "US may halt millennium flights"

Sub-title: "Forty countries fail to respond to computer bug inquiries"

By Richard Wolffe in Washington

More than 40 countries risk having flights to and from the US halted if they fail to persuade international avaiation authorities that their computer systems will function at the turn of the millennium.

Transport officials said yesterday the US must decide by next month whether to halt flights to the countries that have failed to respond to international inquiries about preparations...

The countries represent a third of those asked to supply information to the International Civil Aviation Organization, which sets international flight standards.

Kenneth Meand, inspector general of the Dept. of Transportation, told two congressional panels yesterday that more than 5 million US passengers flew to those countries last year.

[Comment: But OF COURSE there won't be any economic impact here in the US if 5 million international flights -- and the ancillary spending on taxi rides, hotel stays, restaurant dinners, etc. etc. -- just cease to exist. Yeah, right...]

[snip]

At the end of August, the unnamed countries yet to respond included 18 in Asia and the Pacific region, 12 in South America, 8 in the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe, and 1 in western Europe.

[snip]

The General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of the Congress, said only a third of 146 major international airlines had already ensured their computer systems were ready for 2000.

[snip]

-- M.C. Hicks (mhicks@greenwich.com), September 10, 1999

Answers

In the end, they will fly the flights come hell or high water, they will run the nuke plants come hell or high water, and they will man the missile consoles come hell or high water.

Wonder which will come first - hell or high water?

-- a (a@a.a), September 10, 1999.


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