Travel Industry Stares Down Millennium Bug

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http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/tc/story.html?s=vlnml/19990218/tc/travel_1html

Travel Industry Stares Down Millennium Bug

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) - It is now possible to book an airline flight, hotel room and rental car into the year 2000 as a major part of the travel industry finishes an early and apparently successful stare-down with the millennium bug.

Given the dark of doomsday predictions still floating around, that's good news.

But will anyone risk traveling next Jan. 1 or in first few weeks of the uncharted double-zero year? There seems to be some positive news there as well. CIO Magazine, a bimonthly with a circulation of 125,000, has been asking executives in a number of polls during the past 12 months if they personally would fly on a commercial airliner on Jan. 1, 1999.

The question arises because of speculation that air traffic systems and perhaps aircraft themselves might fall prey to disruptions from the is-it-1900-or-2000 computer problem the world has been working to solve for some time.

Two polls done last year found 63 percent and 60 percent respectively saying they would not fly a commercial airliner on that day. But a third poll asking the same question in early February, 1999, found the number not willing to risk a commercial flight had dropped to 41 percent.

Forty-eight percent said they would fly and another 11 percent said they were not sure.

Meanwhile figures from the travel industry indicate the world is already planning to take to the skies in a big way when the year 2000 rolls around. Much of the traffic seems to be driven by tours and special trips being planned by travelers who want to watch the calendar make its historic turn in exotic locales -- even if the actual millennium does not begin until a year later.

Galileo International, the system that processes about a third of the world's travel reservations through its Galileo and Apollo computer networks, began booking year 2000 travel in January and February, 1999.

The Galileo system, which serves Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, saw a dramatic increase in reservations for the year 2000 compared to the amount of business booked a year ahead in 1998, according to Julie Shepherd, spokeswoman for the company.

``For the month of January 1999, we processed 139,741 bookings for (January) air travel in the year 2000 compared to 34,230 bookings during January, 1998, for travel in January, 1999,'' she said.

The Apollo system that serves North America, Japan and parts of the Caribbean processed 34,917 travel reservations for the first four days of January, 2000, when it began accepting the same early in February, an increase of more than 13 percent from a year ago, she said.

The two systems are linked to 158,360 travel agency terminals and connect with 520 airlines, 225 hotel companies, 44 car rental companies and 346 cruise and tour companies in 104 countries.

``From what we discern a lot of people are making really nice plans to celebrate the millennium -- probably a little bit more so than in a normal New Year period and are booking in advance because consciousness has been raised,'' Shepherd said.

``There has been a lot of hype in the media about things being sold out. Usually people don't think about booking this far in advance,'' she added.

The fact that the hotel, airline and car rental companies have been able to move their businesses into the year 2000 with no major computer-related glitches has cheered the travel industry.

The actual state of air travel in the coming year, however, remains open to some speculation.

The Federal Aviation Administration believes its traffic controls system domestically ``is in good shape,'' according to Paul Takemoto, a spokesman for the agency.

``All the fixes that needed to be put in place have been done. We are now in the process of testing those fixes ... by June 30 all FAA systems will be certified as Y2K compliant,'' he said.

On New Year's Eve, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey and the agency's Y2K compliance chief, Raymond Long, plan to fly from Washington westward hopping commercial flights through the time zones to demonstrate that the system has passed the year 2000 hurdle.

The FAA, of course, does not control the actual operation of airports and its reach does not extend beyond the United States. Internationally, Takemoto said, ``It's a mixed bag. You could pick 10 countries and have 10 different levels of Y2K readiness.

``But planes are not going to fall out of the sky, radio signals are not affected,'' he added, though so many other systems impact traffic worldwide ``that there may well be international delays.''



-- Deborah (reuters@yahoo.chi), February 19, 1999

Answers

Hi Deborah:

Did the polling question really use the "1999" dates for january and Febuary, or is this just a typo?

thanks:

Mike Cumbie

-- Michael H. Cumbie (Mikecumbie@yahoo.com), February 19, 1999.


Mike,

I noticed that as well. I cut and pasted. The typo belongs to Michael Conlon @ Reuters.

-- Deborah (1999@2000.com), February 19, 1999.


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