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Travelers Fret Over Y2K
The Travel Critic · March 15, 1999

Will my plane fall out of the sky at the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1? Is the elevator in my hotel room going to shoot through the roof? Will every traffic light stick on green?

Panicked travelers want to know. And considering all the hype and hoopla surrounding the mythical millennium bug, the fabled Y2K computer problem that 1 percent of experts in a recent poll predicted would precipitate "famine and collapse of the U.S. government," it's easy to see why.

When the last two digits of every computer's date flip from "99" to "00" where will you be? The government says we've got nothing to worry about, so go ahead and plan the New Year's trip of your dreams.

So certain is Jane Garvey, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, that she intends to fly across the United States on New Year's Eve. This despite the fact that her umbrella agency, the U.S. Department of Transportation, got a big fat "F" in a recent congressional report card on Y2K readiness.

"We're confident that our systems are going to be ready in time," FAA spokesman Paul Takemoto said in response to the flunking grade. "People who understand the situation don't believe the doom and gloom scenarios."

(While steadfastly maintaining that safety will not be an issue, the FAA did concede last week that some systems, such as baggage handling, could experience a few glitches).

The Chinese government didn't give its airline chiefs a choice when it ordered them to be in the air on Jan. 1, 2000.

Chances are the turn of the millennium won't be catastrophic when it comes to travel. Planes won't drop like flies - at least not over the United States.

The critical guidance mechanism for aircraft is based on the Global Positioning System, which doesn't use a Gregorian year for date information, but a 1024-week cycle that's designed to roll over without a fuss. In terms of the aircraft, none of the essential navigational systems will shut down even if the dates go haywire.

"I just had a call this morning from someone who asked if our planes were going to fall out of the sky on the first of the year," says Christine Turneabe-Connelly, a spokeswoman for Southwest Airlines. "That's kind of a silly question. I mean, would we take off if we thought we were going to fall out of the sky?"

On the hotel side, concerns about ejecting elevators are unfounded, says Ina Kamenz, vice president for the year 2000 program office at Marriott International. Sure, the hotel chain is stocking up on extra bottled water and candles, and it's making sure its properties are equipped with an emergency generator.

"But we're not going to have any of our hotels implode on themselves or anything like that," she told me. "We're testing as much as we can right now, down to the property level. We're going to be in business on New Year's." And probably booked solid.

What about the traffic lights? Will travelers safely land safely and rent a car, only to find total traffic chaos?

"Someone asked me if all the traffic lights would start blinking green on New Year's Day," says Y2K guru Hari Sreenivasan. "The answer is 'no'.

"The only way that traffic lights will be affected by the year 2000 is if the local power utility experiences some difficulty and lose power, which means of course that the lights would be off. Traffic lights in most areas are controlled by either the city's engineering or public works or traffic divisions or are independent on preset cycles which are not date-dependent."

I think it's safe to say that life will go on for us travelers, even in China, after Jan. 1. Where do I want to spend the New Year?

Maybe I'll rent a hotel room and watch the fireworks or take a drive at midnight to see if the lights still work. Or maybe I'll join Garvey on her California flight.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.