Garuda pledges business as usual over New Year
JAKARTA (JP): National flag carrier Garuda Indonesia will continue regular operations over the New Year despite public fears about the Year 2000 (Y2K) bug, a senior executive of the airline said on Thursday.
Garuda's operations director and Y2K team chief Rudy A. Hardono said all of its aircraft were Y2K compliant and would be fully operational on Jan 1.
"We have upgraded our fleet and we're confident about the safety of our flights," Rudy said on Thursday.
He said Garuda's fleet consisted of Boeing 747-400, Fokker 28, Airbus 330, DC-10 and Boeing 737 of the 300/400/500 series.
He acknowledged that some of the aircraft might not be flown over the New Year to a predicted sharp drop in seat demand on Dec. 31 and Jan. 1
"We're closely monitoring the days ahead," he said following the airline's first successful Y2K contingency flight.
The simulation covering the Jakarta - Denpasar route tested the ability of pilots, airport ground controllers and other airport staff to cope in the event of a computer crash.
Y2K refers to expected glitches resulting from older computers being unable to distinguish between the year 2000 and 1900, due to the binary system used for the final two dates when computer technology started to become widespread in the 1950s.
Both Garuda and PT Angkasa Pura II, the operator of Ngurah Rai Airport in Denpasar and other airports in the country, have developed a Y2K contingency plan, the readiness of which was also tested on Thursday.
The head of the Y2K team at the directorate of the Aviation Safety at the Ministry of Communications, Moh. Iksan Tatang, said Garuda planned more simulations on domestic and international routes.
Iksan said the domestic simulations would encompass more airports and therefore more flight routes.
The country will work with Australia and Singapore for simulations on international flights, he added.
The country's aviation will cooperate with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to handle flights on Jan 1, Iksan said.
Manual flight
During the test flight, communication on board was altered from VHF (very high frequency) used under normal conditions to HF (high frequency), which resulted in poorer communication quality.
The aircraft's navigation systems and flight instruments remained operational during the simulation.
"We're now flying without help of ground radars and we've switched to radio beacons for navigation," Rudy said while piloting the Airbus 330-300.
The simulation required Angkasa Pura to shut down several of its airport service systems during the one-and-a-half-hour flight.
Passengers boarded and disembarked at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta and Nugrah Rai without the usual procedures.
Security guards rifled through passengers' bags and their belongings because the airports' X-ray machines were disabled during the simulation.
German passenger Dorothee Graf said she was satisfied with the flight and did not feel inconvenienced by the change in procedures.
However, Austrian Edwin Rader criticized the security personnel and said they needed to be more efficient in conducting searches.
Angkasa Pura claimed in a release that all of its systems were Y2K compliant.
It named the airport systems, flight systems and air traffic service systems as conforming to requirements. (03)