Asian airlines devise plan to avert Y2K chaos in skies
Asian airlines devise plan to avert Y2K chaos in skies
SINGAPORE (AFP): Asia-Pacific airlines and civil aviation bodies have devised a plan preventing congestion in the skies ahead of the new millennium amid fears the "Y2K" bug will disrupt air traffic, officials said Friday.
Under the plan incorporating the different time zones in Asia with those of other regions, flights would be spaced out so that air traffic control would be manageable if the Y2K bug plunged aviation into turbulence.
"This plan will be activated as a precautionary measure in the Asia-Pacific region during the most critical date -- 1 January 2000," said David Behrens, a senior official of the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
"Flights will be flow-controlled. Airways supporting geographic traffic flows will be simplified and de-conflicted," Behrens told an APEC symposium on the Year 2000.
The Y2K refers to the inability of older computer systems to differentiate between 2000 and 1900 which threatens to disrupt not only aviation but also banking and other services whose computer systems are not Year 2000 compliant.
Behrens, IATA's assistant director of infrastructure for the Asia-Pacific region, said the regional plan devised together with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) "will permit the continuation of air traffic in the event there is degradation of air traffic services."
IATA is the Montreal-based umbrella body for all airlines while ICAO, also headquartered in the Canadian city, is a United Nations body supervising civil aviation organizations.
ICAO has urged all countries to publish their Y2K readiness plans by July.
Behrens said that "during the critical times when Y2K disruptions may occur, aircraft will be metered and separated so that air traffic control can safely manage any unanticipated disruption."
In aviation language, "metered" means avoiding traffic jams while "deconflicting" traffic means to ensure airways do not cross paths.
"Everybody is going to share the pain. Everybody will know what to do," Behrens said. "If anything goes wrong, we want safety to be ensured. You got to remember that in the aviation industry, we go to the extreme when we talk about safety."
He said airlines around the world had spent 2.3 billion dollars in dealing with the Y2K problem.
Some 300 experts are attending the talks organized by the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to review the region's Y2K readiness in five critical sectors - finance, telecommunications, transport, customs and energy.
They will devise networks into which APEC economies could tap to cope with possible problems caused by the millennium bug.
APEC groups Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Peru, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam.
Behrens said the Y2K Asia-Pacific aviation contingency plan would be activated according to time zones, beginning at 1000 GMT on December 31 in Fiji, New Zealand, Samoa and parts of Russia.
This will be followed by the inclusion of Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon islands at 1200 GMT and China, Koreas, Japan, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Mongolia and Singapore at 1400 GMT.
Contingency procedures in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka will be activated at 1600 GMT.
Officials said each economy would have a national Y2K air traffic management center to monitor and compile data relating to the millennium problem with all reports to be sent to the regional coordination center in Bangkok.
"What I want to hear is passengers getting off their airplanes on New Year's day, looking at each other and say 'what is all this about Y2K -- a big to do about nothing.' That will be music to my ears," Behrens said.