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This report on the FAA indicates that only 40% of its systems will be compliant in 2000. This means grounded airplanes.
The question is: How many? Half? Two-thirds? Think about the effects on the airlines. How large a percentage of gross revenue, if lost, would force a bankruptcy?
They will default if the reductions are too high (say, 60% of flights).
Then think of a tourist city such as Las Vegas. Or Orlando. A little set-back for the real estate market? I think so.
Then there is the problem of empty hotels.
Dominoes, dominoes everywhere.
This appeared in FEDERAL COMPUTER WEEK (March 2).
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While the Federal Aviation Administration contends that it will meet its Year 2000 conversion deadline, the latest data the agency submitted to the Office of Management and Budget shows that it will have less than 40 percent of its systems operational by Jan. 1, 2000, a source familiar with the data said.
The information the FAA submitted will be included in OMB's next quarterly report on the progress the federal government is making in fixing its computers so they can properly process dates after 1999. The OMB report card, which is due out this month, is "disturbing news" and highlights the snail's pace at which the FAA is moving with its Year 2000 program, according to the source. . . .
The FAA told OMB that it has completed assessing its mission-critical systems, and it reported that it has renovated 10.8 percent of the systems, validated 8 percent and claims that another 4.7 percent of its systems have been fixed, tested and reinstalled. "This is disturbing news because at this rate, less than 40 percent of systems will be completed by the time the Year 2000 rolls around," the source said. "What this means is that we're going to have a lot of airplanes on the ground." . . .
However, FAA administrator Jane Garvey told the subcommittee the FAA would meet its Year 2000 deadline. . . .
The system is located in 21 en route air traffic control centers and consists of 40 mainframes that will cost millions of dollars to replace. Garvey told the subcommittee last week that the FAA has asked Congress for $72 million in fiscal 1999 to replace its host computer system.
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