US Aviation Gets High Y2K Marks, But Work Remains

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US Aviation Gets High Y2K Marks, But Work Remains

Updated 1:37 PM ET September 9, 1999

By Tim Dobbyn

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Aviation Administration has made great progress in preparing for the Year 2000 computer glitch, but substantial work remains to be done to ensure uninterrupted air travel at the end of the year, congressional investigators said Thursday.

The Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO) said the FAA should do more large-scale tests of its many computer systems while they are linked together. It also expressed concern at the number of airports and airlines that would not complete their repairs until late in the year.

GAO information systems expert Joel Willemssen also sounded a warning about overseas aviation readiness, including foreign air traffic control systems.

"These factors could impede FAA's ability to provide reliable aviation services, which could seriously affect the flow of air traffic across the nation and around the world," Willemssen told a congressional hearing.

The Year 2000 problem, or Y2K glitch, occurs because many older computers and their software only allocated two digits for the year in a date. Unless computers are repaired or replaced, the year 2000 may be read as 1900, causing computer systems to make mistakes or crash.

LATE START

The FAA was late in starting work on fixing or replacing the elderly patchwork of hundreds of computers that make up its air traffic control system but declared it had implemented all repairs on June 30.

"Overall FAA continues to make excellent progress on Y2K," Willemssen told a joint hearing by subcommittees of the House Science and House Government Reform panels.

But Willemssen stressed the job was not over, a view backed by Department of Transportation Inspector General Ken Mead, who raised a number of concerns.

Mead testified that the FAA needed to exercise great caution to ensure that local programs and upgrades did not undo the repair work already done.

He also warned that the union representing the technicians who maintain air traffic control equipment had still not played a significant role in drawing up contingency plans in the event equipment fails on the evening of Dec. 31

Mead said that although he believed the large airlines that carry 95 percent of passengers were handling preparations for Y2K well, the FAA now faced the challenge of following up with those carriers who refused to respond to its earlier surveys.

MANY COUNTRIES QUIET ON Y2K STATUS

The transportation inspector general said 53 countries out of 185 had not responded to an International Civil Aviation Organization survey on Y2K readiness.

Without naming specific nations, he said 18 were in Asia and the Pacific, 12 were in Central and South America, 10 were in Africa, eight were in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, four were in the Middle East and one was in Europe.

Mead said the lack of information from these countries, plus the absence of a U.S. policy on whether American carriers could fly to countries that have not resolved the Y2K problem, was creating significant uncertainty for those planning to fly internationally at the year's end.

"Time is running out. In our opinion, these uncertainties should be resolved by Oct. 15," Mead said in prepared testimony.

FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said her agency was working with the Departments of Defense and State to gauge the readiness of foreign civil aviation authorities.

"At this point it appears that if any Y2K impact is felt, it would take the form of limited disruption of service in some locations," Garvey said.

====================================== End

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 09, 1999

Answers

"but substantial work remains to be done to ensure uninterrupted air travel.."

I just have a helluva time reconciling that statement with "We're 100% ready and just submitting our sh*t to the IV&V process".

-- voices (in@my.head), September 09, 1999.


Voices, Hoff will be here shortly to get us straightened out.

Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), September 09, 1999.


Link to the article that Ray posted:

http://infoseek.go.com/Content?arn=a2796reuff-19990909&qt=% 22year+2000% 22+bug*+glitch*+y2k&sv=IS&lk=noframes&col=NX&kt=A&ak=news1486

-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), September 09, 1999.


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