Polish LOT Cancels Flights On Jan 1 Due To Y2K

Jul 12 12:50pm ET

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland's national airline LOT Monday said it would ground all its planes on January 1, 2000 to avoid millennium bug problems, in what is thought to be the first mass cancellation in Europe due to Y2K worries.

``The management has decided to cancel all flights on this sensitive day because of the possibility of complications or problems with the airline's infrastructure,'' company spokeswoman Monika Krajczynska told Reuters.

Krajczynska did not identify specific areas of concern and said flights on LOT's fleet of modern Boeing and other jets will resume service on January 2.

``We want to be mistake-free and that's why we are taking this step,'' she said. LOT flies to most major eastern and western European capitals, North America, and has a large charter operation that ferries Poles to holiday destinations.

She estimated the state-owned company's losses from the one-day grounding would be minimal because of the small number of travelers on New Year's Day.

The year 2000 or Y2K problem arises from the inability of some computers and computer systems to recognize the date 2000, since they were programmed to read only the last two digits of a year.

The glitch may cause computers to malfunction or shut down, a potentially disastrous occurrence if it hits air traffic management systems or equipment on-board jet aircraft.

Many large European and North American airlines and airports have said they were confident their safety and computer checks made it safe for them to fly to most destinations on New Year's Day.

In Asia national carrier Vietnam Airlines has cancelled all its flights just before the start of the year 2000 to ensure there are no millennium bug complications, while Indonesia's PT Garuda has indicated it might not fly on New Year's Day.

Officials from several major Western airlines have said they will be flying when the clock strikes midnight on December 31 to allay public fears about flying through the date rollover.

-- Daren Henderson (TryChange@aol.com), July 13, 1999