NEW YORK -- After working for a half decade and spending billions of dollars, the world travel industry got a glimpse Thursday of whether the big airline-reservations systems on which it depends are ready for the year 2000.
Flight-booking systems are able to work either 330 or 331 days in advance, meaning that 4 February is the first day that customers can buy tickets for flights departing on 1 January 2000 -- a date that could be mistaken for 1 January 1900, if the industry's efforts prove ineffective.
"Everyone has been talking about January 1 as a key date, but it's February 4 for us," said Ronnie Hauptman, Galileo International's Year 2000 director.
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Galileo's Apollo computerized reservation system, or CRS, serves North America, Japan, and portions of the Caribbean. By Thursday afternoon, the company reported it had passed its first Y2K test by processing airline availability, fare quotes, and ticketing requests for carriers. It also said it successfully processed hotel and car-rental reservations for 1 January 2000.
More than 100,000 travel agencies that book around 80 percent of all flights depend on a handful of computerized systems. If those companies and their partners are able to handle the rollover on Thursday, the date-dependent travel industry is on its way to crushing the Y2K bug.
Galileo, the world's second-largest computer reservation system handles about a third of bookings. Sabre, the No. 1 travel-reservation company, handles another third. Spain's Amadeus Global Travel Distribution and WorldSpan are also major players.
