Many Airports Not Y2K Ready

Lets see, FAA says one thing, a government study says ... Hummn. -- Diane

Posted at 7:06 a.m. PST Thursday, March 4, 1999

Study: Many airports not ready for Y2K

BY RICHARD BURNETT
The Orlando Sentinel

http://www.mercurycenter.com/breaking/docs/071293.htm

In another Y2K caveat, a government study says air travel faces possible widespread delays on Jan. 1 because many airports are behind in preparing for the year 2000 computer bug.

About two-thirds of the nation's airports indicate they will not meet the Federal Aviation Administration's June 30 deadline for being Y2K-ready, the study said.

They risk equipment failures and other problems that could trigger a logjam during at New Year's, according to the General Accounting Office, a congressional watchdog agency.

Although others, such as Orlando International Airport, are on track to meet the deadline, they could feel the effects of those that aren't ready.

``Because of the interdependence among airline flights and airport facilities, delays at one airport could cause delays at other airports and eventually affect the efficiency of the national airspace system,'' the study said.

But aviation industry officials say the situation is better than the study indicates.

``That sounds like old data from last summer, and there has been a lot of progress since then,'' said Diana Cronin, spokeswoman for the Air Transport Association of America, a Washington trade group. ``Almost all airports now have a plan or program in place, and they expect to be ready.''

The GAO study was based on a December survey of 334 primary commercial airports nationwide. One-third said they would be ready by June, and one-third said they would miss the deadline but have manual contingency plans in place.

The final third expected to miss the deadline and had no operational contingency plan in place. Nine of the nation's largest airports were in that group. They were not identified.

But officials at Orlando International Airport said meeting the June deadline is not expected to be a problem.

The biggest challenge is to craft a contingency plan that would make OIA virtually Y2K-foolproof, said Judy Aakeberg, year 2000 project manager.

``Since we are finished with most of the remediation and testing work, we have the opportunity to focus on having the best contingency plan possible,'' she said.

OIA is working with vendors, other airports and the FAA to prevent a chain reaction of problems.

Smaller airports face an especially tough challenge, said Stephanie Weidner, project manager and assistant marketing director for the Sanford Airport Authority.

Sanford has no information systems staff, so the airport agency has to mobilize all departments to get informed and deal with the problem, she said.

Only last month, Orlando Sanford Airport set up an interdepartmental committee to address Y2K.

``Fortunately, as a small operation, we're somewhat different than Orlando in that a lot of our systems are still manual,'' Weidner said.

See also ...

GAO report ...

Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Status of Airports' Efforts to Deal with Date Change Problem GAO/RCED/AIMD-99-57, Jan. 29.

Adobe Acrobat PDF format (60 pages):

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/r199057.pdf

(Text-based format not yet up).

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), March 04, 1999

Answers

Last July (I remember reading) Hartsfield International Airport in Atlanta began to study possible effects of the Y2K rollover on its operations.

"Atlanta's Hartsfield International Airport handled 73.5 million travelers in 1998 overtaking Chicago's O'Hare International as the world's busiest in passenger volume."

Source: http://www .airwise.com/airports/us/ATL/atl_news.html

What can I say. But I don't need to say anything.

At Atlanta Hartsfield Airport, information systems manager Otis Clake told the Atlanta Business Chronicle: "We are ahead of some airports and behind some. But we should be able to get things done... before the new millenium." Jim Jones, managing director of the Information Management Forum's Y2K group, told the newspaper that the airport will not have enough time to get it right. The airport has to look at 117 critical systems which may be affected by computers which do not recognize the new century. The work is being carried out by the Air Transport Association. Hartsfield was due to carry out a separate $50,000 study on less critical systems in June.

(from http://www .airwise.com/airports/us/ATL/atl_news.html, where I also found this:

The Year 2000 computer problem which threatens chaos at midnight on December 31 1999 has stirred officals at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport into action. According to Jim Jones, managing director of the Information Management Forum's Y2k group, they will not have enough time to get it right even though an evaluation of the problem has already started. Hartsfield, which will handle around 70 million passengers this year, is looking at 117 critical systems which may be affected by computers which do not recognize the new century. The work is being carried out by the Air Transport Association, an airline trade group. The airport has already identified some systems which need attention but they still have to wait for the new studies to report before they are tested and corrected. Otis Clake, Hartsfield information systems manager, told the Atlanta Business Chronicle: "We are ahead of some airports and behind some. But we should be able to get things done...before the new millennium." Meanwhile Hartsfield's biggest customer, Delta Air Lines is ahead of the game. It has been looking at the potential problems since 1995 and has 200 consultants working on solutions. Systems already brought into line include the airline's Skymiles program and its maintenance schedules. Corporate Communications Manager Kip Smith says the company plans to operate seamlessly through the year 2000."

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), March 05, 1999.