World's Air Traffic Control Seen Ready for Y2K

Updated 7:34 AM ET December 7, 1999

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) - Airports and air traffic control systems worldwide have reported that their Y2K programs are complete and they are ready for the millennium rollover, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Tuesday.

IATA, which has been tracking airports and air traffic service providers for year 2000 compliance on behalf of its 265 member airlines, said data received showed "a high level of Y2K readiness in all regions."

The industry has worked to ensure that computers in planes or air traffic control systems do not go haywire as the clock strikes midnight on December 31.

In a statement, Geneva-based IATA sounded a reassuring note to New Year's travelers, saying Y2K preparedness was good at airports and in air traffic control systems which provide pilots with navigational aids like radars and communications equipment.

"The international carriers are able to monitor the Y2K readiness for over 1,600 airports (representing 97 percent of international traffic), and 200 air traffic centers (covering all major international routes)," IATA said.

It quoted IATA Director-General Pierre Jeanniot as telling a board of governors in Montreal on Monday: "Critical systems and equipment have been reviewed. ATS (air traffic systems) compliance progress is good. Regional and global air traffic contingency plans are complete and ready for deployment."

Thomas Windmuller, director of IATA's year 2000 project, leads a team of more than 100 experts working on Y2K.

"We have visited hundreds of airports and about 200 ATS sites. Both sectors are ready," he told Reuters.

"Any place commercial traffic goes to, we've checked. There are a couple of countries or areas we don't have enough information about, but no one flies through their airspace anyway," Windmuller added.

Airports have reported on Y2K aspects including the expected functioning of baggage belts, flight information display boards, passenger check-in systems, elevators and escalators.

Air traffic service providers -- including the Federal Aviation Authority in the United States and National Air Traffic Services in Britain -- have reported on compliance of radars, surveillance and communications equipment.

Airlines, which have been issuing statements about their own compliance, have paid IATA $30 million to check on airports and air traffic control systems, he said. They have also paid some $15 million to the U.S.-based Air Transport Association which groups major U.S. air carriers, he added.

"Globally, $45 million has been spent by the airlines."

IATA said it would join the International Civil Aviation Organization on December 31 in staffing eight regional centers to track any developments.

"We'll monitor developments as each time zone flips over and report to our member airlines if anything is happening. We are not expecting anything dramatic whatsoever," Windmuller said.

"The air transport industry is always safety-conscious. This is just one more layer added on to make sure there is no compromise on safety," he added.

IATA quoted James Strong, chief executive officer of Qantas (QAN.AX) who chairs IATA's board of governors, as saying: "We have demonstrated our determination to beat the so-called Millennium Bug and we believe we will be ready to satisfy customer travel and cargo needs."

======================================= End

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), December 07, 1999

Answers

Guess Windmuller didn't see this: this

Or maybe Russia is one of these countries:

"Any place commercial traffic goes to, we've checked. There are a couple of countries or areas we don't have enough information about, but no one flies through their airspace anyway," Windmuller added.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 07, 1999.

Apparently Reuters didn't get a copy of the Nov 22 Senate report.

The Air Traffic Control system is on the list of problems yet to be solved.

-- semper paratus (fasten.seatbelt@no.smoking), December 07, 1999.

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=001qX5

[snip]

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Y2K doubts haunt air-traffic control

Tuesday, November 23, 1999

By ROBERT A. RANKIN

Knight Ridder Newspapers

WASHINGTON - The nation's air-traffic control system still is not ready for the Year 2000 computer challenge, according to a report Monday from the House of Representatives' Y2K oversight committee.

With 38 days to go, air-traffic control is one of 18 "high- impact" federal programs that remain "at risk of failure," according to the House Committee on Government Reform. Other at-risk programs include food stamps, child nutrition, Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance.

Air-traffic control's potential Y2K vulnerabilities stem principally from the international nature of much air travel. "The international connections are the ones they are concerned about," said Rep. Constance A. Morella, R-Md. "But nothing will fly that isn't totally safe," she added.

Government Reform Chairman Stephen Horn, R-Ca., said "we are concerned about" air-traffic control readiness in Japan, Italy, Russia and many under-developed countries, but added: "I think that what we're looking at is also domestic readiness."

Yet in a demonstration of his own confidence in the domestic system, Horn plans to fly out of Los Angeles on New Year's Eve. "I've already booked my ticket. It's right in my pocket for Dec. 31," Horn said.

The FAA insists that its air-traffic control system is fully prepared. "I can only speak from our perspective, and to us things look good," said Paul Takemoto, FAA's spokesman for Y2K. The FAA certified its systems as fully Y2K compliant last June.

"We feel very confident" about all U.S. air-traffic control systems and "the safety of airlines flying into the U.S.," Takemoto said.

As for potential Y2K aviation problems overseas, the FAA has done "exhaustive tests on the communications links between foreign air- traffic control systems that link with our systems. The one thing to bear in mind is that the FAA does not have authority over foreign air space," Takemoto said.

The Y2K computer bug stems from a pervasive software practice where the date for year 2000 is recorded simply as "00." Computers may misread that as year 1900, which experts say could cause them to malfunction or shut down on Jan. 1, and even for weeks and months after.

To demonstrate the system's safety, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey will make a symbolic flight across the country on Dec. 31. Garvey plans to depart from Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C. at 5:10 p.m. EST, to arrive at Dallas-Ft. Worth at 7:43 p.m. CST, to depart from there at 10:09 p.m., and to arrive in San Francisco at 12:07 a.m. PST.

During that trip through four U.S. time zones, Garvey's plane will pass three times through the century-date rollover as measured by the aviation standard of Greenwich (England) Mean Time. Under that standard it will be 7 p.m. on the U.S. East Coast when midnight strikes at Greenwich, England.

In general Horn praised the federal government's success in fixing potential Y2K problems. He gave the government overall a "B- plus" report card for its efforts since he held his first oversight hearing in Y2K preparations in early 1996.

Twelve government departments and agencies are fully Y2K compliant, Horn said, but four - Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Treasury - "still have a few mission- critical systems to fix." The Internal Revenue Service's field computers remain a concern as well, Horn said.

The White House insisted that the entire federal government will be ready for Y2K by Dec. 31.

"I think it is important to look at the overall picture. Two years ago when we started issuing reports on Y2K, 80 percent of government mission critical systems were not prepared, were not ready for the date change. Today, as of our last report a couple of months ago, those figures were 97 percent and climbing," said Linda Ricci, spokeswoman for the White House Office of Management and Budget.

"Now, six weeks before the end of the year, there are in fact three agencies and a handful of systems (unprepared). Each of these agencies has assured us that they will have the final work done in time.and the federal government will be fully prepared for the date change," Ricci said.

Nevertheless, Horn said OMB has designated 43 federal programs as "high impact" in terms of Y2K exposure, and 18 of them "remain at risk of failure." The Y2K-vulnerabilities of most of those programs stem from the fact that they involve federal benefits administered by state and local governments whose Y2K preparations may be inadequate, Horn said.

He cited an October audit from the inspector general of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, for example. It concluded that thousands of families who live in public housing are at risk of losing their heat, elevators and fire and security systems from Y2K-outages.

Public-housing authorities "were seriously behind in their Year 2000 remediation efforts" in eight of nine cities audited. Only New York City was prepared, the HUD inspector general reported. Cities whose public housing was audited and found under-preapred were Detroit, Fort Worth, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, New Orleans, Omaha, and the District of Colum- bia.

The 18 "at risk" federal programs include: child nutrition; food safety inspection; food stamps; supplemental nutrition program for women, infants and children (WIC); student aid; child care; child support enforcement; child welfare; Indian health services; low- income home energy assistance; Medicaid; Medicare; temporary assistance for needy families; public housing; unemployment insurance; retired rail worker benefits; air traffic control system; and maritime safety.

[snip]

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 07, 1999.

Okay... Russia and the United States. Guess this is what Windmuller meant.

"Any place commercial traffic goes to, we've checked. There are a couple of countries or areas we don't have enough information about, but no one flies through their airspace anyway," Windmuller added.

-- Linda (lwmb@psln.com), December 07, 1999.

I guess Reuter's also hasn't seen the Nov. 4, 1999 GAO report:

www.gao.gov/y2kr.htm

Damn. I'm sounding more and more like a doomer.

I'm not, though.

ALK

I'M NOT

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), December 07, 1999.

IATA Director-General Jeanniot: "...ATS compliance progress is good."

I'd rather have good compliance than good compliance progress.

-- Bill Byars (billbyars@softwaresmith.com), December 07, 1999.