WIRE:02/27/2000 11:03:00 ET Egypt airports on alert for leap-year Y2K problems CAIRO, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Egypt's Civil Aviation Authority said on Sunday Egypt's airports would be on alert from February 29 to March 1 for any computer glitches related to the Y2K computer bug. "Nineteen operations rooms will be set up in all Egyptian airports to monitor computers with a main operations room to coordinate monitoring in Cairo airport," Mamdouh al-Bagoury, head of the Aviation Authority's monitoring section, told reporters.

He said Cairo was one of seven centres around the world designated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation to monitor regional Y2K problems because of the leap year.

The Y2K computer bug stems from mainly older computer systems which were programmed to read only the last two digits of a year. If the systems are uncorrected, a computer could read 2000 as 1900, causing them to malfunction or even crash.

Egypt reported no Y2K problems at New Year, but the extra leap year day in February could still fool some systems.

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/reuters20000227_536.html

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), February 27, 2000