International Flights To Halt In Pakistan For Y2K

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International Flights To Halt In Pakistan For Y2K

Updated 11:54 AM ET October 8, 1999

BA 42 3/8 -3/8 (-0.88%) KARACHI (Reuters) - International airlines, including Pakistan International Airlines, will halt flights to and from Pakistan for 18 hours starting on the evening of December 31, a PIA official was quoted as saying Friday.

The News daily quoted PIA Chairman Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as saying operations would be suspended from 6 p.m. on December 31 until noon January 1 and that PIA would check aircraft for Y2K computer problems before resuming flights.

"Like other international carriers, PIA will also stop its operations at the evening of December 31, 1999 and will resume at midday of January 1, 2000," Abbasi was quoted as saying.

A PIA spokesman confirmed the report and said a formal announcement on the flight suspensions would be made later.

The newspaper quoted Abbasi as saying PIA would carry out a series of tests of its aircraft for any computer glitches caused by the change to the year 2000 on the morning of January 1.

"Up till now all the (PIA) aircraft were tested for the Y2K problems at the simulator level and found clear but the final clearance can only be given after the actual flying," he said. Another senior PIA official was quoted as saying all the airline's Airbus Industrie and Boeing Co. aircraft would be brought to Karachi and all Fokker NV aircraft would be brought to Islamabad for the January 1 checks.

Most of PIA's 30 planes are made by Airbus and Boeing.

The newspaper quoted sources as saying most of the airlines operating flights to Pakistan had rescheduled any flights they had in the country during the 18-hour period.

PIA said it would run tests on its ground-based systems for any Y2K problems from the middle of this month.

It said there were no problems with its ticketing systems because a new system was recently installed by the U.S. travel services company Sabre Group Holdings Inc.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), October 08, 1999


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