Any one for puts on the transports?
THE SUNDAY TIMES
May 23 1999 EUROPE
European Airports Heading For Millennium Computer Crash
by Stephen Bevan and Lois Jones
SOME of Europe's busiest airports and air traffic control centres have
fallen seriously behind in their plans to deal with the millennium bug, the
software problem that could bring computers worldwide grinding to a halt at
the new year.
A Sunday Times investigation has revealed that destinations such as the
three main Paris airports, plus others in Spain, Italy, Romania and at
Luton, may be unable to complete the work needed to eliminate the problem by
the end of this year. Experts have predicted chaos and warned that
passengers could be at risk.
The same airports are believed to feature in an "at risk" list being drawn
up by the International Air Transport Association, the airlines' trade body.
It is spending £12.5m on a study of 331 airports and 134 air traffic control
centres around the world, but has provoked anger for refusing requests to
reveal its findings - including one from the government.
Robin Guenier, executive director of Taskforce 2000, said: "There's a lot of
fear that some airports and air traffic control centres are not going to be
ready."
Luton has been pinpointed as the British airport giving greatest cause for
concern. An insider said: "They've done very little," adding that the
airport may have to close over the new year.
Barry Foord, Luton's systems and IT manager, said one third of the computer
systems would be tested in situ, but the rest would not. The airport would
rely on the manufacturers to guarantee that their equipment was
millennium-compliant. He believed Luton would be safe.
Last week airports in Paris, Rome and Madrid admitted that they were far
from resolving the problem. Naples, Italy's third-busiest airport, with 3.5m
passengers a year, said it did not expect to complete the work until June
next year.
Jacques Reder, spokesman for Aéroports de Paris, which runs Orly, Charles de
Gaulle and Le Bourget, said that it had tested 85% of its systems, but
insisted that flaws would be resolved by the end of the year. Gary Miles, of
PA Consulting, who has been working with companies all over the world,
including BAA, the British airports authority, to resolve millennium bug
problems, said the situation in Paris was worrying. "They really ought to be
well into final testing."
In Spain, 30% of computer systems in the country's 40 airports and five air
traffic control centres have yet to be tested. Antonio Villalon, manager of
information systems at the Spanish civil aviation authority, said flaws had
been found in software that processed the flight plans of aircraft. "There
are a lot of other problems that we do not know about," he said.
Italy faces similar problems. Carlo Pietro Santi, a spokesman for Rome's
Leonardo da Vinci airport, said that a fifth of their software, controlling
functions such as baggage reclaim, check-in facilities and flight
information, had yet to be checked. He said that any work outstanding at the
end of June would have to wait until the end of September. "We will not risk
disrupting our computer systems during peak season," he said.
The Civil Aviation Authority has ordered inspections of all Boeing 727s
after faults that could cause fuel tank explosions were found on American
aircraft.
|
