David le Page
Alarm over “Y2K bug” problems is starting to hit reservations for January air travel. Bookings for December 31 and early January are not yet being cancelled – but ticket prices are beginning to fall, suggesting an unseasonal drop-off in demand.
American Airlines announced that it plans to cut flights on December 31 1999 and January 1 2000 because of low bookings. The airline has cut 20% of its New Year’s Eve flights.
In the United Kingdom, controversy has followed the suggestion by Taskforce 2000 that people avoid all international travel in December and January. Taskforce 2000 is an independent body that has been working since July 1996 to remedy the Y2K problem in British industry, business and government.
The British travel industry, not surprisingly, dismissed the Taskforce 2000 suggestion as hysterical and irresponsible.
South Africans are also beginning to show concern about how safe it is to fly, especially in the days before and after New Year’s Eve.
For one millennial holiday-seeker, watching an item on the issue on M-Net’s Carte Blanche was enough to provoke doubt. She and her boyfriend have cancelled a long-planned trip to the Seychelles in favour of driving to Cape Town.
Two things stuck in her mind following the Carte Blanche programme. Firstly, a statement to the effect that a Boeing 747 in flight amounts to 400 000 parallel airborne processes vulnerable to failure. Secondly, a map showing Africa’s areas of likely Y2K compatibility. Only South Africa and Egypt were highlighted.
A lawyer who has been consulting on the problem for the past two years also says he would prefer to avoid air travel over the New Year period.
South African Airways, however, says bookings remain normal for the traditionally quiet December 31.
The Y2K bug is a limitation in older computers, software and microchips, which were programmed to use two digits to represent the year – “00” follows “99”, but could represent either 1900 or 2000. This was done to save memory space in relatively primitive early computers.
Experts are divided over the likelihood or possible extent of disruption to vital services, even in the United States. In Africa, the problem is limited to those countries that are dependent on computer systems.
“Air traffic control in Africa is 30 years behind the rest of the world,” says Victor Kaiser, head of the South African Air Pilots’ Association.
The Air Pilots’ Association doesn’t know of any computerised systems in Africa. Which means the end of the millennium will probably roll over with barely a thunk in most of the continent’s airspace.
What about the omnidirectional beacons used by aircraft in navigation?
“Ninety-nine per cent of the time the beacons don’t work anyway,” says another pilot, who prefers not to be named.
This doesn’t mean that airlines flying over Africa are flying blind. Inertial navigation and global satellite positioning are precise, and robust systems that pilots have come to rely on in the absence of any beacon are more constant than a campfire on the ground.
Clearly, a chart showing the absence of Y2K compatibility in African aviation rather misses the point.
If you are flying on New Year’s Eve, check whether the flight crew is using the International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations inflight broadcast procedure. Its use might have prevented the collision of a US Air Force C-141 transport plane and a German army Tupolev TU-154 off the Angolan coast in 1997, according to an International Pilot Services advisory.
That accident, fortunately, alerted the world to the need for airborne collision avoidance systems, now standard on any aircraft you might otherwise bump into at commercial flight altitudes.
As far as planes themselves are concerned, Kaiser points out that only the Boeing 747- 400 and the Airbus A-300 are sufficiently computerised for Y2K failures to be a relevant problem. Both Boeing and Airbus Industrie have done extensive Y2K testing, and reported no problems.
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