Airports facing 2000 bug risk
BY MARK HENDERSON
THIRTY major European airports, including the second busiest in the world, were last night branded safety risks after a United States Government millennium bug report.
Passengers flying into Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland next year will land at terminals that have not yet updated computers controlling airside security, public safety and fuel supplies, according to the report published on the Internet by the US Department of Transportation.
The failings stand little chance of being fixed in the eight weeks that remain before the millennium and are likely to compromise passenger safety, bug experts said on viewing by far the most comprehensive guide to flying over the millennium yet published.
British airports, airlines and air traffic control get a clean bill of health from the report. Frankfurt, however, which handles 42 million passengers a year and more international flights than any other airport bar Heathrow, emerges particularly badly. Robin Guenier, the executive director of the independent watchdog Taskforce 2000, said he was "completely staggered" by the findings.
"If I were the chief executive of an airline, I wouldn't want to be flying into any of these places," he said. The American data suggested that ten European countries were "at serious risk" of millennium air trouble, he said.
The report says Frankfurt has still to overhaul most of its key computer systems, has set no date by which it promises to be bug-compliant and has yet to finish drawing up contingency plans.
Updates still pending at other airports include the access control and security system at Geneva and Zurich's navigational and approach aids.
A spokesman for the International Air Transport Association in Geneva denied that any European airports would face safety problems: "The data collected by IATA shows Y2K readiness in all regions."
the-times.co.uk |
