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- Most travelers should be able to fly
safely on Jan. 1, 2000, but they may have trouble getting a hot slice of
pizza. The aviation industry is rushing to get ready for the millennium,
when some computers and chips may go haywire because they don't recognize
post-1999 dates. While government and industry officials say flight should
be safe in the U.S., convenience is another matter.
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- The Federal Aviation Administration is
spending $185.6 million to upgrade everything from air-traffic control
to weather-monitoring equipment.
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- AIRPORTS ARE CHECKING a huge array of
systems, from jetway operations to baggage-location displays, and they
are focusing on safety and security. Lower on the priority list are some
air-travel staples such as food-service microwaves, gate-display monitors
and escalators.
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- It isn't clear how many of these devices
contain the problem-prone chips. "If it's only going to be an annoyance
if it goes down, why not wait and see if it does?" says Beverly Gibson,
marketing director at Isys Technologies Inc., a Greenwood Village, Colo.,
consultant working with several airports on year 2000 issues.
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- Still, there is little room for even
minor miscues. A record 10 million people will be flying for the 1999 holidays,
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP projects, during what is normally airports'
busiest period.
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- MIND-BOGGLING LOGISTICS
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- Larger airports are likely to be further
along in "Y2K" preparations than smaller ones, but all say the
logistics are mind-boggling. The midsize Cincinnati airport went to great
lengths chasing down the maker of one of its firetrucks' ladder lifts.
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport reprogrammed its automated 35,000-space
parking system so employees wouldn't have to calculate each visitor's bill
by hand. Officials at the tiny Barrow, Alaska, airport have a different
concern: their new, high-tech front-end loader, which plows snow off the
tarmac.
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- "There are enough systems out there
that everyone will have a surprise," says Peter Drahn, director of
the Dane County Regional Airport in Madison, Wis. His airport staff will
have extra keys on hand should the automated-door system fail.
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- Right now, the systems that get planes
in and out of the air are expected to perform properly. The Federal Aviation
Administration is spending $185.6 million to upgrade everything from air-traffic
control to weather-monitoring equipment. The agency says it expects to
wrap it all up by the end of June, a bit behind government targets. Boeing
Co. and Airbus Industrie say their planes' flying won't be affected.
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- The Dallas/Fort Worth airport so far
has upgraded the software controlling 20,000 airfield lights and replaced
its seven runways' thermal sensors, which detect ice. "I wouldn't
have any reservations about booking a flight," says Lawrence Weintrob,
assistant inspector general for the Department of Transportation, who monitors
the FAA's Y2K compliance.
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- A record 10 million people will be flying
for the 1999 holidays, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP projects, during what
is normally airports' busiest period.
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- Federal officials say they haven't yet
gotten full information about some foreign countries' plans for air-traffic
control and other vital functions. If they aren't satisfied with foreign
plans, U.S. agencies could issue warnings to travelers and pilots. The
DOT can even ban traffic between specific airports and the U.S., if it
perceives a security risk, or prevent U.S. airlines from flying over certain
countries.
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- On a recent day at Richmond International
Airport, year 2000 coordinator Toni Vanderspiegel was sitting at a computer
monitor as a contractor told the airport security system to create an access
badge that would expire Jan. 1, 2000. A moment later, the message "operation
successful" appeared on the screen. "Voila - that's exactly what
we want," she says.
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- The former Air Force technician has amassed
a two-inch-thick binder of items to check, from the airport's sprinkler
system to its three videocassette recorders. So far, the airport has decided
to replace much of its outdated computer setup, including an accounting
program made by a defunct company. Airport employees managed to track down
a former software designer for the concern, who admitted he had no idea
what would happen to the program next year.
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- One floor down, environmental director
Sandy Williams was testing a squat green machine that analyzes runoff water
from the tarmac, a federal requirement. It worked, to the relief of Ms.
Williams, who could have had to stand in the rain collecting samples if
it hadn't.
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- 'WE'LL MANAGE'
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- Not everything is getting a thorough
exam. Sandra Cokes, owner of airport salon Sandra's Hair Port, isn't worried
about whether her credit-card processor will work. "We'll manage,"
she says.
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- A survey in November by the American
Association of Airport Executives and the Airports Council International-North
America found that 87% of major hub airports either are assessing Year
2000 problems or already have done so, with 40% of those airports working
on or finished with fixes. The Air Transport Association estimates that
fewer than 5% of all airports haven't started preparations.
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- The Y2K problem has become a major research
project for the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, which
has been at it for more than a year. Fewer than half of 800 vendors initially
responded to its year 2000 survey, forcing officials to follow up with
letters and phone calls. Gathering information on a single firetruck took
more than a month.
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- First, employees tracked down the manufacturer,
a unit of Oshkosh Truck Corp., of Oshkosh, Wis. The unit sent them to Bronto
Skylift, a Finnish firm that made the ladder-lift mechanism. That company's
parent, Federal Signal Corp., of Oak Brook, Ill., said that as a matter
of policy it told customers requesting information on the Y2K glitch that
its products shouldn't be affected. A company spokesman says he doesn't
know what happened in Cincinnati's case. "Nothing is simple in this
process," says Rita Wetterstroem, who heads the airport's Y2K program.
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- Bigger airports have more complicated
systems - and bigger headaches. Dallas/Fort Worth is scrapping its voice-mail
system. "The equipment was, shall we say politely, vintage,"
says a spokesman.
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- Then there is Wiley Post/Will Rogers
Memorial Airport in Barrow, at the northern tip of Alaska. Dano Bollman,
general manager, says his small facility can do without the computerized
front-end loader if it has to, since it has a low-tech snow plow and sand
spreader. Its lone personal computer, used for its daily weather log, should
work, because it is less than a year old.
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- If it doesn't, Mr. Bollman says, he has
a simple remedy: pencil and paper.
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