Governments will be alerted in dire cases
THE INTERNATIONAL Air Transport Association (IATA), which spent R125 million on a Year 2000 compliance survey of 1 800 airports and air traffic control networks, says it will not make these results publicly available.
According to director-general Pierre Jeanniot IATA has not agreed to make these findings available, saying that in dire cases the governments concerned will be alerted. It's the airlines who will decide whether to fly on 1 January, he is reported to have said.
Recently the chairman of Airports Council International (ACI) General Jean Fleury warned that many airlines and airports were not going to be Y2K compliant. He said that so far only the government of Nepal had admitted that it would be ready for the new millennium, but it was known that a large number of other countries simply did not have the money to address the problem in time.
A number of airline officials have said they will be in the air on 1 January, he said. But you need to understand that they mean they intend being in the air over their own countries, not flying internationally.
By Terry Hutson
