Flights shuffle as Y2K precaution

By CHRIS DANIELS

aviation reporter

A fear of flying into the dawn of the new millennium has prompted one of the world's leading airlines to change its flight plans for the New Year.

Singapore Airlines says it will cancel or reschedule some flights that were to be in the air at midnight.

The airline, which has 91 jets, including 37 Boeing 747-400s, said it was not 100 per cent certain that no disruptions would be caused by computer troubles on New Year's Eve.

The Singapore Airlines services most affected will be those normally in the air at midnight in different time zones around the world, or at midnight Greenwich Mean Time, which is universal time in the airline industry.

Greenwich Time is 12 hours behind New Zealand standard time, but because of daylight saving, it will turn midnight at 1 pm here on January 1, 2000.

Singapore Airlines, which has a good safety record and one of the youngest fleets of planes, said the affected routes would be to and from Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as transatlantic services.

"We must stress that we have no reason to believe that any of the countries in question will not be ready for the Year 2000 crossover," said chief executive Dr Cheong Choong Kong.

"However, we operate a lot of medium and long-haul services that fly through the airspace of many countries, and we do not have enough information on every one of these countries to be 100 per cent certain that no disruptions will occur."

Air New Zealand spokesman Alastair Carthew said its New Year schedules were still being organised. "We're not quite in a position to announce that yet, but we are ... looking at the schedule over that period with a view to determining whether we need to cancel some flights or not.

"That will be driven by demand," said Mr Carthew.

"We are quite confident about all of our Y2K arrangements and the arrangements with our Y2K partners and the international work that has gone on."

Mr Carthew said demand was usually down at that time anyway, especially for business travel.

This year many people would "be on the ground celebrating the millennium."

Even in areas where there might be concern about air traffic control, international aviation organisations had put in contingency plans, he said.

Air New Zealand flew mainly to Australia, the United States, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Japan - all areas that were strong with their Y2K planning.

These plans included having a greater separation between planes flying over certain areas, said Mr Carthew.

David Libeau, the Qantas marketing manager for New Zealand, said some flights might be cancelled or rescheduled, but it would be driven by demand.

"There is always less demand - who wants to be travelling on New Year's Eve if they can avoid it?

"We have made some adjustments to our schedules, but Qantas would not be operating in any areas where there wasn't a full understanding of Y2K compliance."

Transtasman flights would not be disrupted.