Asia-Pacific New Year air traffic to be cut by two-thirds
12 Pacific countries endorse precautions
If you have to fly on New Year's Eve, book early. Most Asian airlines
have agreed to cut back flights by two-thirds well before midnight on
December 31.
They will not resume full schedules until air traffic controllers from
Auckland to Tokyo are satisfied they have the computer millennium
bug under control, say sources in the International Air Transport
Association (Iata)The Asia-Pacific agreement was signed last week in
Tokyo by Thailand and 11 other Pacific nations with heavy air traffic
and important air-control centres: Australia, Canada, China, Hong
Kong, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, the
United States and Vietnam.
The plan, endorsed by Iata, calls for airlines to begin grounding their
jets at 6 p.m. New Zealand time (noon Thailand time) on December
31. Air traffic will be cut at least two-thirds below schedule before
midnight. Ground controllers will space planes out at least twice as far
as normal, both vertically and horizontally.
Airline sources said the bulk of commercial airliners in the northern
Pacific area would remain grounded until well after midnight Tokyo
time, as various time zones change from 1999 to 2000.
There is no target time to resume regular traffic, the sources said. Jets
will begin flying by the schedule only after major air-traffic
centres-Sydney, Bangkok, Tokyo and others-agree the computer bug
poses no problems.
The distance between planes will be extended to 15 minutes from the
standard 10, and flight separation will be increased to 1,240 metres.
The Iata move suggests that airlines and flight controllers are still
unprepared for potential computer problems posed by the new year.
Airlines have insisted they will meet or beat the Y2K compliance
deadline-but not all have released details and few have conducted
public tests to win consumer confidence.
Only one international airline, Virgin Atlantic, has formally announced
that it will not fly on New Year's Eve.
bangkokpost.net
FAA UPDATE
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