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Midnight hits early on a plane

By Ann Imse Denver Rocky Mountain News Staff Writer

So you thought you were safe from Y2K bugs by flying on New Year's Eve afternoon?

Not necessarily.

Think about it. Clocks on jets don't change every time they cross a time zone.

Actually, airliners and the national air traffic control system operate on Greenwich Mean Time, which is seven hours ahead of Denver. So the witching hour for U.S. airlines is 5 p.m. Mountain Time, not midnight wherever the plane happens to be, says Kirsti Dunn, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

But while dozens of flights near midnight New Year's Eve have been canceled for lack of passengers, those at 5 p.m. still will be flying.

Robert Polk of Polk Travel said Tuesday he doubts most travelers know about the 5 p.m. turn of the calendar. Elise Eberwein, spokeswoman for Frontier Airlines, said she realized it herself just recently.

Passengers have already voted with their credit cards and avoided traveling around midnight New Year's Eve. That prompted airlines like Frontier and United Airlines to cancel one-third of their regular schedules for that day, mostly late in the evening. DIA is expecting just 64,500 passengers that entire day, about one-third below normal.

British Air has canceled its 6:30 p.m. Denver-London flight on Dec. 31. United still has an overnight flight from Denver to Washington to Paris, but "it doesn't look like they've sold very many seats on that one," Polk said.

But the late afternoon flights are still on the schedule, Polk said. And the FAA's Dunn said she knows of no effort to reduce flights in the air at 5 p.m. She said the FAA expects the air traffic control system to operate without a hiccup.

In fact, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey will be in the air at both midnight GMT and midnight West Coast time, flying from Washington, D.C., to Dallas to San Francisco as a show of confidence.

Polk and Eberwein agreed with the FAA's optimism. "I really don't think we're going to have any problems" in the entire U.S. airline system, Polk said.

Frontier had almost no Y2K problem to worry about, since the airline was only created in 1994, and most of its equipment was already Y2K compliant. In fact, Frontier has spent just $160,000 on its Y2K preparations, compared with United's $85 million.

Most of Frontier's staff has to work New Year's Eve anyway, just in case other people's problems -- such as power outages across the country -- require Frontier to make abrupt contingency plans for rerouted flights, Eberwein said.

"It's total defense, really. We're going to be monitoring the situation like everyone, and eating chili, and complaining about why we're here," she said. "We hope it's a non-event."

And if you are flying on New Year's Eve, DIA has a piece of advice. Leave the fireworks at home. Airport security thinks explosive millennial celebrations are about as funny as jokes about hijacking.

Contact Ann Imse at (303) 892-5438 or

imse@RockyMountainNews.com.

December 29, 1999

-- Homer Beanfang (Bats@inbellfry.com), December 29, 1999