Flight Trackers Likely to See Empty Skies as Nation Greets the New Year
Only one American Airlines flight originating in the continental United States will be aloft as the nation greets the year 2000.
The rest of the continental flights of the world’s second-largest carrier have been canceled, and that one might have been canceled too, if not for one particular passenger. Federal Aviation Administrator Jane Garvey had booked the flight from Washington to Dallas-Fort Worth and on to San Francisco, and it would not be politic to ground the government’s top airline regulator. So Garvey and a smattering of other passengers--mostly members of the news media--will have the lonely skies almost to themselves when midnight sweeps across the country on Dec. 31.
Americans, by and large, seem to have shrugged off scaremongers’ warnings that the 2000 computer problem could cause planes to fall from the sky by making critical systems malfunction.
Staying Home for the Holiday
But a combination of mild Y2K anxiety, employers’ year-end work mandates and personal preferences for celebrating the millennium have turned America into a nation of homebodies for the New Year’s holiday.
Most U.S. airlines report that demand for tickets has been so low that they have reduced flights much more than usual over the holidays. Some carriers--including Southwest Airlines, National Airlines, Frontier Airlines and Virgin Atlantic Airways--have decided not to fly at all for as long as 24 hours during the New Year’s rollover.
As a result, federal officials tracking flights at the FAA command center in Washington will not have much to look at.
“You’re going to look up at the map at midnight and the United States is going to be black except one little yellow arrow going from Dallas-Fort Worth to San Francisco,” said John Hotard, American Airlines’ spokesman, referring only to commercial passenger flights.
The airlines insist that their curtailed flight schedules have nothing to do with concerns that Y2K problems might affect airports, air traffic control systems and airplanes. They, like other companies and government units, have spent large sums of money to update computer software that might have interpreted 2000 as 1900 after reading only the final two digits.
The first to announce its decision to keep planes parked for the holiday was Virgin Atlantic, a private British carrier based in Crowley, outside London.
Eleven months ago, the company said it would give all of its employees the holiday off, grounding airplanes for 24 hours. In all, 46 flights were canceled.
“From an employees’ standpoint, we felt people would want to spend the millennium with friends and family. And from the customers’ standpoint, we felt they wouldn’t want to be in the air on New Year’s Eve. They’d rather spend it with their friends and family than flying 3,000 miles. It’s such a unique occasion,” said Sharon Pomerantz, a spokeswoman for Virgin Atlantic, which operates flights between London and its nine U.S. hubs, with connections to Asia, Africa, Europe and the Caribbean.
Las Vegas-based National Airlines made the same decision, but for economic reasons. Virtually no one had reserved seats on any of National’s flights scheduled to depart between 10 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and 11 a.m. on New Year’s Day. So the airline decided not to fly during that period.
“The only reason that we can come up with is that this is the millennium,” said Dick Shimizu, spokesman for the year-old airline, which normally operates 46 flights a day between Las Vegas and Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Dallas-Fort Worth. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime event, unless you plan to live a really long time.”
Some Feel Travel Not Worth the Risk
Kurt Ebenhoch, a spokesman for United Airlines, said that holiday schedule reductions are routine for airlines. But he conceded that this year’s reductions are deeper than usual. United will fly 28% fewer flights on New Year’s Eve than on a normal Saturday. Ebenhoch attributed the dearth of demand to employers’ work requirements and the apparent desire of many Americans to celebrate the occasion with loved ones.
A Harris Interactive poll released earlier this month showed that 68% of Americans surveyed plan to be in their own homes when the clock strikes 12 on New Year’s Eve. Most said that that would be the case even if there were no year 2000 computer problem.
And there is plenty of evidence that some people have decided that flying over the New Year’s holiday weekend is not worth the risk.
Three high school bands, one from California, chose to forgo the honor of playing at the Fiesta Bowl in Phoenix because of Y2K worries, according to a spokeswoman for the Fiesta Bowl, which refused to name the schools.
The Mormon Church told its missionaries and employees to stay off airplanes between midnight Dec. 31 and Jan. 5 because of “lingering uncertainties” about the safety of air travel.
But polling by the Air Transport Assn., which represents airlines in America and Canada, shows that public confidence in the Y2K readiness of airlines has been increasing. The portion of those queried who thought Y2K is likely to cause major problems dropped from 48% in June 1998 to 19% last September.
Despite repeated assurances that airlines are Y2K ready, travel agents report that the vast majority of people traveling over the holiday are asking for old-fashioned paper tickets instead of electronic tickets--just in case.
The airline industry has earned high marks from Senate and administration Y2K panels and industry groups.
Earlier this month, the International Air Transport Assn. reported a “high level of readiness” at the 1,600 airports and 200 air traffic centers that its member carriers depend on around the world.
Millions Spent on Y2K Compliance
All FAA systems, including air traffic control, are Y2K compliant, according to the agency, and all of the nation’s 565 airports certified for passenger service are expected to meet regulatory safety and security requirements during the 2000 rollover.
“All of our systems were implemented as Y2K compliant by June 30,” said FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto. “Since June, we’ve been testing and retesting in the field.”
In an industry where safety is crucial, efforts to tackle the problem started earlier than in many others, and there was a lot of collaboration among companies.
U.S. and Canadian airlines have spent a total of $750 million fixing their computers, testing their systems for Y2K compliance, ensuring that all of the businesses they rely on have done the same and developing contingency plans in case of unexpected problems. Worldwide, expenditures total an estimated $2.3 billion.
American, which flies 2,500 flights a day, spent $130 million on Y2K remediation and completed its fixes more than a year ago, Hotard said. United, the world’s largest carrier, spent $85 million, Ebenhoch said. Virgin Atlantic, with only 46 flights a day, spent $16 million, Pomerantz said.
One airline, however, got by without spending much. “We started flying May of this year. All the computer equipment we purchased was Y2K compliant,” said National Airlines’ Shimizu. “There are some advantages to being the new kid on the block.”
