David Learmount/LONDON
Religion, especially in medieval times, used the fear of hell as its most potent weapon to make people believe and behave. The promise of heaven never had quite the same power of persuasion.
Those who wish to persuade industry to believe in the Y2K "bug", and to motivate it to act, face much the same obstacles as priests. Y2K is a problem that has not happened yet.
Motivation is the problem, then. So to find priests who will preach the Y2K gospel effectively, look to those who fear of hell most. Hell, for airlines, would be an immobilised air transport system in which they are unable to make money. The airlines have chosen their priest wisely: their trade association, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which fears hell as much as they do.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), on the other hand, has to persuade states to act to prepare their aviation agencies for the millennium. It has taken on the role of coordinator, providing guidance, an action priorities list, and has set itself up as a forum for exchanging information and reviewing progress. An important task of its regular Y2K forum, ICAO says, is preventing the duplication of effort.
DEFINING THE DEVIL
Meanwhile IATA, fearing Y2K hell, started about two years ago by defining the devil. He is, according to IATA, not a creature whose principal domain is hidden deep among the wiring looms and black boxes of aircraft avionics bays, but who dwells in airport passenger and cargo terminals, in the towers of air traffic service (ATS) providers and the mainframes of booking and ticketing systems. It is for the air transport industry's supporting infrastructure that IATA fears. The association explains: "Commercial air transportation depends not only on airlines but also on airports, ATS providers and other major industry suppliers. One failure in the complex relationships between parties can have serious consequences for all." IATA is already working on its own in-house contributions to the total infrastructure, the most vital of which is its "clearing house" service which allocates revenue from passengers who pay in a single transaction for journeys involving multiple airlines, or those who change their booked airlines after buying a ticket.
The Association of Asia Pacific Airlines puts it more emphatically: "The member airlines and the manufacturers of the aircraft they use are confident that the on-board systems will be compliant, and that there will be no impact on flight safety from this source. However, the airlines use heavily the services of airports and air traffic control (ATC) systems throughout their route networks. They also interface with immigration and other government services." So an example of IATA's ultimate nightmare is an even longer queue for immigration services than exists at many airports already. That and, simultaneously the failure of computers which manage everything from ATC flight plans to passenger check-in and cargo tracking.
THE TARGETS
Under its year 2000 project, IATA says it has targeted all international airports and ATS providers used by member airlines outside North America for attention, but has allocated priorities. (In North America, the Air Transport Association of America is taking the lead.) Designated for "Tier 1" attention are the world's 70 busiest airports (graded by passenger boardings). Not surprisingly, IATA's other major partner organisation in the project, apart from ATA, is the Airports Council International, but the airport systems inventory methodology has been developed in consultation with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the accounting group. The inventory includes airport interface with ATS providers.
Targeted for similarly detailed (Tier 1) scrutiny among ATS providers are "-all flight information regions associated with the top 70 airports, plus states providing overflight facilities along the principal intercontinental tracks".
Below that top level, IATA says that it has identified 250 more airports for "Tier 2" help and monitoring. As for their associated ATSs, "working in close collaboration with ICAO", IATA has set about identifying the states "having the greatest need for attention".
The rest is designated for Tier 3 attention. Action for each Tier includes:
Tier 1. An IATA team visits the airport or ATS provider and works with it to make an inventory of mission critical systems, to collect detailed data on them and on the year 2000 compliance status of the systems;
Tier 2. For airports, a joint team of airport and airline managers attend a training seminar to learn how to identify "date aware" mission critical systems, assemble the data and report it to the IATA year 2000 team. In the same tier, ATS providers are to form a joint team including the state's director general of civil aviation. With ICAO support or IATA regional staff, the team is to complete a summary of year 2000 preparations and present it to IATA.
Tier 3. IATA says this is similar to Tier 2 attention, but to be carried out by airport and ATS managers using a toolkit provided by IATA.
IATA emphasises that many airports and ATS providers have not needed external encouragement or assistance to carry out their own Y2K compliance checks and modifications. These, the association points out, have only to submit to IATA a report on the measures that they have taken. IATA insists, however, that all airports and ATS providers, however meritorious, file a comprehensive Y2K status report.
Customs services, particularly the 186 national authorities which process cargo, have been presented with an IATA-developed standard methodology for the evaluation of Y2K readiness. Reports filed by the appropriate customs authorities will be made available to IATA and ATA member carriers on the project website.
STICK NOT CARROT
There has to be an incentive for organisations to take part in the IATA year 2000 project. The incentive that the association has chosen to use is a stick rather than a carrot.
All agencies, suppliers, airports, or ATS suppliers will be graded according to their known level of Y2K compliance, and that level will be posted on the project website, which has password-protected access restricting it to IATA members. This allows member airlines to withdraw their business from, or plan for restricted business with, those who are likely to be non-compliant at 1 January, 2000.
IATA has borrowed its compliance categorisation system from the ATA's Y2K survey. Designations are as follows:
These categories, IATA emphasises, are not awarded lightly. Its own Regional Coordination Groups (RCGs), which consist of airline operations experts, will review and confirm data submitted by ATS providers. The association's Regional Airport Steering Groups will check out selected airports for compliance. The colour designations are not final, IATA points out. Its intention is to help any unit which has compliance problems to resolve them, explaining: "The goal is for all units to reach Blue, fully tested and ready."
Meanwhile, ICAO has a similar stick with which to beat its member states with. Having already circulated them all with a list of their duties and a questionnaire, it has received acknowledgement from about one-third. ICAO, like IATA, has posted objectives and set target dates in its programme. These are published on ICAO's Y2K website at www.icao.int/y2k, which anyone can access.
The first target date was imminent as Flight International closed for press, the intent being "-to publish the status reports on progress among states to provide confidence to the travelling public and aircraft operators." That would be the first of a series of targets, the results of which would all be published on what ICAO does not choose to call a "naming and shaming" basis, but actually is just that. The final target for compliance is 1 April, 1999.
Progress in individual states will be continuously monitored by ICAO regional offices, not just to record progress and report it, but to enable industry resources to be concentrated where they are needed most.
IATA and its members are investing large sums in ensuring that the system measures up to the Y2K challenge. The cost to airlines is around $1.6 billion, and the cost to IATA of funding the year 2000 project is about $20 million.
The purpose, in the end, is for all states, organisations and airlines to have reached Blue status, but where non-compliance is suspected, as IATA explains it, "-information will be gathered to put airlines in a better position to determine an appropriate course of action".
Source: Flight International
