http://www.asia-inc.com:80/nov_98/fiy2k.htm

The International Federation of Airline Pilots, representing more than 100,000 pilots, warns that some airlines and air-traffic authorities are not doing enough to ensure that computer systems are bug-free. "The worst-kept secret in the aviation industry right now is that the millennium bug could paralyze air services throughout the world during the festivities," says Simon Davies of the computer security research center of the London School of Economics.

Someone is waking up....

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), December 05, 1998

Answers

We have had airline strikes before...how much will it effect things if just the airlines shut down????

-- More Dinty Moore (Not @this time.com), December 05, 1998.

The insurance companies will be falling all over one another to

yank their coverage. This may also apply to trains, boats, subway systems etc. It won't matter if the gov says it will

pick up coverage. No one will get on anything that moves that has a

chip on board. Except those Darwin has designated superfulous.

-- Mike Lang (webflier@erols.com), December 05, 1998.

But if "No one will get on anything that moves that has a chip on board", how will my Ruffles get to the store?

Uh-oh, y2k looks like it may have more serious consequences than any of us thought.. empty snack-food shelves.

-- Leo (leo_champion@hotmail.com), December 05, 1998.

"We have had airline strikes before...how much will it effect things if just the airlines shut down????"

This isn't about Aunt Millie being stranded in Cancun.

Think.

An airline strike involves one airline. The rest keep flying. If they're all shut down -----

How about the airline employees......the ones who are laid off and can't make mortgage payments? The airport employees who don't work because the planes don't fly.

What happens to all that wonderous JIT inventory that never makes it to the point of use? To the using companies that go bankrupt? To their employees who don't have jobs?

What happens to California produce that never makes it to eastern markets? To the growers who don't get paid, to the stores that don't sell, to the clerks that get laid off?

Now, what happened during the last UPS strike? Hundreds of businesses went belly up simply because they couldn't get orders out and FedEx, etc., couldn't fill the gap. The effects of loss of air traffic for more than a few days can impact every business in this country. Worse -- the world, because we import a lot of stuff that is flown it (chips and other lightweight stuff).

-- rocky (rknolls@hotmail.com), December 06, 1998.

Rocky, You made me think...guess I just had a "brain lapse"..sorry, must have been the nutra-sweet!

-- More Dinty Moore (Not @this time.com), December 06, 1998.

Rocky, bravo! A clear example of conscious *Y2K-Think*.

Instead of accepting the surface meaning of a statement, you look at the statement as a whole. You take in all of the implications of the situation. You free-think possibilities what of what types of meteors may soon approach in a shower of challenges and threats. You begin to prepare mentally. You begin to share the information... even to feel an obligation to share it.

Is this prompted by the "guilt" of knowing about Y2K before everyone else "finds out"? The guilt of having an advantage that the general public won't have?

Geesh! This Y2K focus has some strange side effects.

Rocky, I just meant to say that I thought you made some excellent points in your argument, and that you did it in a way that demonstrated principles we will all need to undersatnd to ride the waves.

Thanks.

-- Sara Nealy (saran@ptd.net), December 06, 1998.

...that's "understand" and "to ride the waves"..

I hate when that hapis ...happens.

-- Sara Nealy (saran@ptd.net), December 06, 1998.

Good comments, correct analysis. But ATC affects the cargo carriers too (Fedex, UPS, USPS (smaller degree)) so businesses outside of airtravel (people movers) are affected.

However, I have noticed that the pilot tends to land first in a crash - and they are most often limited to just one crash per career, so I suspect that the pilots will be (as this article indicates) the most conservative (most thoughtfull) critics of "rushing" back into flight status.

Most likely, a series of single "test" flights (like a shuttle flight) without passengers before general flying resumes. All assuming the "airport" functions. Also, the pilots would likely impose some national action if they begin getting their lives threatened by the faulty ATC computers.

-- Robert A. Cook, P.E. (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), December 07, 1998.