Y2K air travel still in doubt

By YOKE HAR LEE

Airlines in 34 countries are showing no signs of having met Year 2000 aviation requirements just three months out from the millennium.

The Canadian-based International Civil Aviation Organisation - a United Nations group which sets international flight standards - has not received a response from these countries to the Year 2000 issues it has raised.

Ken Mead, inspector-general of the United States Transport Department, said the International Civil Aviation Organisation had surveyed its 185 members and by last week 34 had still not responded.

He said most not supplying information were from Asia, Africa and the former Soviet Union, with nine from the Pacific - Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, the Cook Islands, Palau, Nauru, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

The dilemma comes as uncertainty increases for international travellers planning to fly over the New Year period.

An Air New Zealand spokesman, Alastair Carthew, said yesterday that it was not clear when the airline would decide if it was flying over the millennium.

"We are looking at schedules to see whether there is a need to cancel some flights. Now is the time airlines can give travellers optimum warning that they won't be flying. But for us, we really have to assess how our load factors are tracking. Globally, load factors are going to be lower than normal," he said.

The chairman of Air New Zealand, Sir Selwyn Cushing, said in the company's annual report, released two days earlier, that the airline was planning to operate services over the New Year period - where safety could be assured and the services operated made commercial sense.

The company's $18 million Year 2000 compliance programme was well advanced, he said.

Ansett Australia has said it will stop all domestic and international flights over a 13-hour period into January 2000 because of low demand for travel.

Northwest Airlines of America and its Dutch partner, KLM, this week said they would cut many international flights on December 31 as there was a lack of demand for seats.

Ed Smart, of the International Federation of Airline Pilot Associations, said pilots were confident of flight safety in North America, the eastern Pacific and northern Atlantic regions. "However, we are somewhat less confident about Eastern Europe and other areas of the world."

He said there was a possibility of airspace and airports along main AsiaEurope routes being closed because of air-ground communications failures.