Garuda pledges business as usual over New Year
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)