TOKYO, July 14 (Reuters) - Japan's big three airlines said on Wednesday they had finished checking their aircraft and computer systems for the year 2000 computer bug and were now 100 percent millennium compliant.

``We (the three airlines)...were fully prepared to cope with the millennium problem by the end of June,'' said Masahiro Kinoshita, a managing director at All Nippon Airways Co Ltd (ANA) , at a joint news conference with Japan Airlines Co Ltd (JAL) , and Japan Air System Co Ltd (JAS) .

The companies said they expect the cost of correcting and replacing computer programs and other measures related to millennium compliance to total eight billion yen each.

The millennium bug will hit at midnight on December 31 because many older computers and software were programmed using only two digits for the year in dates and will not recognise 2000. Computer systems using uncorrected programmes could mistake the year 2000 as 1900, causing malfunctions or shutdowns.

Japan Airlines' senior managing director Zenta Yokoyama said it had to fix 14,000 out of its 65,000 computer programs. ANA had to revise 2,500 programs out of a total 40,000, while JAS changed 600 programs out of 14,000.

The companies said they would not be able to decide on their flight schedules for the year-end and new-year season until at least until October when the Japanese Transport Ministry draws up flight plans based on information gathered in cooperation with international aviation groups.

The airline executives declined to respond directly to questions about concerns that passenger numbers will decline at the end of the year as travellers get nervous about the Y2K problem.

A recent survey by AC Nielsen Japan, a unit of the U.S. market researcher, showed that 70 percent of Japanese people feared that the millennium bug could cause problems at airlines.

-- kevin (innxxs@yahoo.com), July 14, 1999