12/18/99 -- 8:58 PM

Guyana cancels New Year's flights in Y2K move

GEORGETOWN, Guyana (AP) - Guyana's major national airline has canceled all its flights over the New Year's holiday to avert any problems stemming from the millennium bug .

``We're not taking any chances,'' said Liz Rahaman, spokeswoman for Guyana Air 2000. She said all fights on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1 were canceled over concerns about air traffic control and other systems.

The airline made the move despite assurances from the government's Civil Aviation Department that its computer systems were free of the millennium bug, which refers to the inability of older computers to recognize the year ``00'' as 2000 rather than 1900. Experts fear such a glitch could cause some systems to falter or shut down.

Guyana Air normally would have operated two flights to New York and one to Miami a day.

The government says all its departments are Y2K compliant except for the country's water department, which is racing to beat the clock to update potential bugs in its billing system.

In Guyana, only about 30 percent of the government's functions are run by computer, officials said.

The U.S. State Department agrees that Guyana is ``generally prepared'' in part because it is not heavily reliant on computers, according to its latest Y2K fact sheet on the former British colony.

-- another (country@toast.y2k), December 18, 1999

Answers

``generally prepared'' = not heavily reliant on computers ...

hhhmmm

-- new definition (prepared@ready.capable BS), December 18, 1999.

Water will be a huge issue nearly everywhere next year.

-- i thirst (billions@parch.desert), December 18, 1999.