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'Red Light' Y2K Air-Travel Problem Countries Named

By Steve Gold, Newsbytes LONDON, ENGLAND, 05 Nov 1999, 7:03 AM CST

Taskforce 2000, the UK industry-funded agency on Y2K issues, has become the first group of its type to issue a list of countries where air travel might not be safe because of the Y2K computer problem.

Although the issuance of the list this morning is likely to cause more than a few arguments in the travel industry, as well as the occasional storm of fury from the governments concerned, the list makes for some interesting reading.

Several European destinations are listed in the agency Y2K Red Light list, including Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Portugal. Air travelers, the agency warns, should avoid air travel to and within these and other listed countries for a period of five weeks from just before Christmas 1999 to the end of January 2000.

The agency says that, when overseas, travelers could be exposing themselves unnecessarily to disruption and inconvenience - even to some risk to their personal safety.

According to Taskforce 2000, its current investigation into air travel has proved extraordinary because so little information is available about this essential matter.

The agency says it should be a lot easier to get clear, detailed information about which countries are ready and which are not, because the date change is now less than two months away.

Furthermore, the agency says that the only useful information that is available - from the US government - indicates that the situation is not good in several major countries, including Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Robin Guenier, the agency's executive director, said that Taskforce 2000 is sure that, like the US government, the British government has access to far more detail about international aviation readiness than it is making publicly available.

"Yet the best it can do in the facts-packed information guide currently being delivered to every home in the UK is to suggest that travelers should `pack a good book' and `take a torch.'"

Guenier said that Taskforce 2000 believes that, as an essential public service and to ensure the safety of British citizens abroad, the government has a clear duty to issue immediately detailed and serious advice to citizens who are thinking of travelling by air over the critical period.

"It is disgraceful that, because government is failing in that duty, we have had to provide this information ourselves," he said.

Against this backdrop, Taskforce 2000 has drawn up a simple table indicating the status of some of those countries likely to be of the greatest interest to British travelers.

The table draws on the agency's knowledge, as well as the US government listing of potential trouble spots.

Taskforce 2000 is also advising travelers to visit the US government Web site at http://www.y2ktransport.dot.gov/fly2k , but points out the disclaimer found in the introductory page.

The countries listed in the red light list are: the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Spain and Switzerland.

Taskforce 2000's Web site is at http://www.taskforce2000.co.uk .

Reported by Newsbytes.com, http://www.newsbytes.com .

07:03 CST

(19991105/Press Contact: Rob Wilson +44-1252-811117; Robin Guenier, Taskforce 2000 +44-870-240-0301 /WIRES TOP, Y2K, BUSINESS/Y2KBEHIND/PHOTO)

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), November 05, 1999

Answers

What an exciting fun new way to start the Millennium, stranded in a foreign country, destitute, target of vengeful rage against the "American Computer Satan" which tricked the globe into becoming totally dependent on digited webbed carrying capacity, and then shredded itself, leaving the flies of humankind to dessicate in the holocaust winds ...

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), November 05, 1999.

Sounds like all of Europe will be a red-light district.

-- SH (squirrel@hunter.com), November 05, 1999.

Avoid travel to Europe?

What're they trying to do, trash the tourism industry?

Another piece of conjecture hatches into reality, people.

Yo, Y2K Flo! You didn't warn us about this?

-- lisa (lisa@aghast.jeez), November 05, 1999.

It's pretty mind-bending, if you think about it, which is why no one does.

Imagine for a moment, that ALL the computers in the world were just fine, a-OK, EXCEPT for the aviation industry.

Would we be talking about a global depression? No? How many businesses are dependent, directly or indirectly, on airline travel? How many people globally will be out of work if planes stop flying for any length of time? The entire leisure industry. Entire cities (Las Vegas, Miami, well shucks, Hawaii). Hotels, restaurants, resorts, shops, the mini-cities that are modern airports.

And that assumes that other industries are left unaffected.

The mind, it boggles.

-- too (big@to.contemplate), November 05, 1999.

Anyone care to bet on how long it will take all these countries on the "list" to deny that this is true? My persoanl bet is that they will all say "it's based on old data, we much better off now than when this report was written"

-- John Beck (eurisko111@aol.com), November 05, 1999.

Maybe it's OK if Fedex, UPS, DHL, etc fly over Europe and drop their cargo down with parachutes onto the closed runways.

Redundancy. Workarounds. Ya gotta do whatcha gotta do, right?

-- lisa (lisa@work.now), November 05, 1999.

thye stop flyin' and I get to drive to Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Indianapolis, dayton, etc. For about a month and then we have to wonder if MY industry gets any gas......

Chuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), November 05, 1999.

A friend of mine wishes to bug out to New Zaeland and has asked me what I think may "go down" with the airlines and when. I haven't followed this one too carefully, so if anyone has some other hot links on the subject, they would be appreciated.

He hopes to postpone travel till Feb 7-14 (after the direct 1/1/00 glitches, but before the petroleum dominoes really begin to fall).

What think ye?

-- Zach Anderson (z@figure.8m.com), November 05, 1999.