Plenty of potential year 2000 computer glitches could affect the aviation industry despite major achievements by the Federal Aviation Administration in fixing its equipment, a congressional hearing was told Thursday.
Congress's General Accounting Office (GAO) said the FAA should do more tests of its systems while they are linked together and guard against problems stemming from airports, airlines, and foreign air traffic control services.
"These factors could impede FAA's ability to provide reliable aviation services, which could seriously affect the flow of air traffic across the nation and around the world," GAO information systems expert Joel Willemssen said.
The uncertainty surrounding aviation systems in other countries was highlighted by data showing 35 countries had still not responded as of Thursday to an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) request for information that had been due 1 July.
The year 2000 problem, or Y2K glitch, occurs because many older computers and their software only allocated two digits for the year in a date.
Unless computers are repaired or replaced, the year 2000 may be read as 1900, causing computer systems to make mistakes or shut down. For air travelers that could mean anything from airport escalators not working to long delays if controllers' screens fail and traffic is restricted to maintain safety.
Despite the warnings against overconfidence sounded in Washington, aviation industry officials gathered in New York Thursday to declare that air travel on 1 January will be as reliable and safe as it is now.
The Air Transport Association and other industry groups, issued results of a poll showing 75 percent of 800 US adults surveyed 6-7 September believe the Y2K bug will be a minor problem and only 9 percent had changed plans to avoid flying around 1 January.
The FAA was late in starting work on its elderly patchwork of hundreds of computers that make up the air traffic control system but declared it had implemented all repairs 30 June.
"Overall FAA continues to make excellent progress on Y2K," Willemssen told a joint hearing by subcommittees of the House Science and House Government Reform panels.
But Willemssen stressed the job was not over, a view backed by Department of Transportation Inspector General Ken Mead, who raised a number of concerns.
Mead testified the FAA needed to exercise great caution to ensure local programs and upgrades did not undo the repair work already done.
He also said the union representing technicians who maintain air traffic control equipment had not played a significant role in drawing up contingency plans in the event equipment failed on the evening of 31 December.
Mead said he believed the large airlines that carry 95 percent of passengers were handling preparations for Y2K well, but the FAA faced the challenge of following up with nearly 2,000 small and medium carriers which did not respond to its earlier surveys.
Mead said that as of 31 August, 53 countries out of 185 had not responded to ICAO, a United Nations organization based in Montreal. FAA later issued updated figures showing just 35 failures to respond.
FAA listed the countries as: Albania, Angola, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brunei, Burundi, Cambodia, Comoros, Cook Islands, Congo, Fiji, Guinea, Iraq, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lesotho, Libya, Micronesia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nauru, Nicaragua, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Qatar, Russia, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Tajikistan, Tonga, Vanuatu.
Mead said the lack of information from certain countries, plus the absence of a US policy on whether American carriers could fly to countries that have not resolved the Y2K problem, was creating significant uncertainty for international travelers at the year's end.
"Time is running out. In our opinion, these uncertainties should be resolved by 15 October," Mead said.
FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said her agency was working with the Departments of Defense and State to gauge the readiness of foreign civil aviation authorities.
"At this point it appears that if any Y2K impact is felt, it would take the form of limited disruption of service in some locations," Garvey said.
FAA would look into whether additional large scale tests were needed but Garvey expressed satisfaction with a successful demonstration in April of Y2K repairs.
Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.
