Wall Street Journal: New Year's revels in a Y2K war room: Fear of flying? Air carriers ground flights on Dec. 31 or plan to cut them 20 percent

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

I know we've had a lot of posts on the airlines, but several among us have wondered how flight cuts this year compare to previous ones. This article provides some answers...

R.

www.businesstoday.com/techpages/y2kfly12021999.htm

New Year's revels in a Y2K war room: Fear of flying? Air carriers ground flights on Dec. 31 or plan to cut them 20 percent The Wall Street Journal Thursday, December 2, 1999

Afraid to set foot inside an airplane on New Year's Eve? Worried about what a Y2K computer bug could do to your flight? Well, relax.

There aren't going to be that many flights to board anyway.

A number of airlines, including Southwest Airlines, National Airlines and Virgin Group's Virgin Atlantic Airways, are keeping their airplanes on the ground in the hours around midnight, Dec. 31. Other carriers, both domestic and overseas, are sharply cutting back their schedules - far more than they usually do for a New Year's holiday.

Most airlines say the dramatic reductions have nothing to do with safety concerns and the Y2K computer glitch. Rather, they say the cutbacks are the sort they do every year around the holidays in response to slackening ticket demand. Several airlines that are taking the unprecedented action of shutting down altogether say they are doing so only to give their employees a chance to be with their families.

One standout is Singapore Airlines. That carrier explicitly cited safety matters in announcing that it wouldn't operate any flights to Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia that had been scheduled to be in midair at midnight, Greenwich Mean Time, on Dec. 31. The air carrier said it was doing so because it couldn't be ``100 percent certain that no disruptions will occur'' in all of the countries the airplanes would be flying over.

Airlines routinely adjust their flight schedules to track demand, and the cutbacks they are making this New Year's Eve are some of the biggest ever. UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, for example, will reduce its capacity by 27 percent over Dec. 31 and Jan. 1, more than double the reduction it made last year. AMR Corp.'s American Airlines says it will cut its New Year's Eve flights by 20 percent; it reduced them by just 10 percent last New Year's Eve. Both airlines will have flights in the air at midnight.

Southwest Airlines is going much further and halting all operations for the 10 hours starting at 10 p.m. on Dec. 31, a move that grounds 162 flights. In addition, it is cutting back by 27 percent its flights during the rest of the two-day holiday period.

A spokeswoman said that Southwest's temporary shutdown wasn't a safety matter but instead was a way for employees to spend the time celebrating with their families. She couldn't recall another instance when the airline had stopped flying completely. Other airlines keeping all of their planes parked on the tarmac for a good part of New Year's are Virgin Atlantic and National Airlines, a new carrier based in Las Vegas.

The slowdown is a global event. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and British Airways have far fewer flights planned than usual, as do Qantas Airways and Japan Airlines. They all cite weak demand.

The safety of the nation's air-traffic system has been the topic of considerable discussion and concern ever since the public became aware of the computer-date rollover several years ago. The airline industry collectively has spent billions of dollars readying its computer and control systems to handle the date change. Most observers say systems in developed countries should be entirely safe - though there are still lingering questions about other parts of the world.

The Air Transport Association, the industry's main trade group, says the public has, for the most part, recovered from Y2K fears of flying. The group says surveys show just 10 percent of the flying public is unwilling to be on an airplane at midnight, Dec. 31. ``We are very pleased with where public opinion is on this issue,'' an association spokesman said.

Airlines themselves say airplanes are among the last places people want to be on New Year's Eve - not because they're scared, but because they don't want to miss the proverbial Party of the Century. ``We don't think people are that excited about greeting the new millennium at 30,000 feet, although we will certainly offer them champagne if they have to,'' said a spokesman for American.

``By New Year's Eve, people are already going to be where they are going to be,'' a National spokesman said.

Actually, anyone in the U.S. who is genuinely fearful of airborne computer problems on New Year's Eve should keep their feet on the ground starting well before midnight: That's because most of the computers in the global aviation system run on Greenwich Mean Time. And midnight GMT is 7 p.m. Eastern Standard Time and 4 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.

Airlines say there are other reasons airline bookings have dropped off so steeply: Many people have to spend the evening at work, making sure computers don't go haywire. Travel agents say reports of an overcrowded Party of the Century have scared many people into staying home.

``They are overwhelmed by everything,'' said Haneen Denfoura, manager of Saint Francis Travel in San Francisco. ``They don't want to be in a hotel paying twice as much for a room as they would have paid ordinarily.''

But other travel agents note that some people have expressed Y2K dread of being airborne that night. ``Some people have said to me, `Let's wait until after New Year's,''' said Kelly Huitink, a travel agent with Parnassus Heights Travel in San Francisco. ``They are a little bit leery.''

The airlines planning to fly at midnight on Dec. 31 say they wouldn't do so unless they were certain it was safe. Indeed, several publicity stunts have been planned to demonstrate the safety of air travel that evening. United Airlines, for example, has arranged for Y2K consultant and pundit Peter de Jager to be on one of its trans-Atlantic flights at midnight. And Jane Garvey, the Federal Aviation Administration Administrator, will be en route from Washington to San Francisco on an American flight.



-- Roland (nottelling@nowhere.com), December 03, 1999


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