Just to be sure, airport will operate manually

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) Rollover/Back-Up Forum : One Thread

Unusual contingency plans:

http://www.courier-journal.com/localnews/1999/9912/29/991229air.html


-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 29, 1999

Answers

[Fair Use: For Educational/Research Purposes Only]

Wednesday, Dec. 29, 1999

Just to be sure, airport will operate manually

By RICK McDONOUGH, The Courier-Journal

Officials at Louisville International Airport insist everything is Y2K OK.

But in an unusual move, the airport is going to take everything from parking gates to runway lights off computer control and place them on manual backup systems.

The changeover will take place in the next two days and remain in effect until sometime this weekend.

"We said, 'Rather than risk it, let's go manual on all our primary systems,' " airport general manager Jim DeLong said.

Parking is where most people will see the impact: The substitute system will require employees to do arithmetic and could cause delays and bottlenecks at the exits.

The control tower, which is operated by the Federal Aviation Administration, will stay on computers, except for the one that turns on the runway lights.

Those lights will be switched on and off by hand. A generator, not Louisville Gas & Electric Co., will supply the power.

Inside the terminal, the boilers that heat the building will run on diesel fuel starting today rather than the usual natural gas supplied by LG&E.

The parking system -- which was certified as Y2K-ready by its manufacturer, an Atlanta operator with similar systems that will still be in use at larger airports on New Year's Eve -- will be replaced tomorrow with a slower, $40,000 backup system.

With the current automated system, attendants have an easy job. When a driver hands them a parking ticket, they put it in a reader, which immediately tells them, as well as the customer, how much is due. With the backup system, attendants will have to check the current time, read the ticket, calculate the number of hours and days the vehicle has been in the lot, and then check a chart to see how much to charge.

Dennis Pohl, general manager of the parking operation, said he couldn't predict how well his attendants will adapt. "They've never done it before, so we don't know what will happen," he said.

But Pohl said it is sure to cause delays. Even after the automated system is back in use, attendants will have to deal with two types of tickets during a busy season.

"THE TRUE TEST," he said, will be early next week "when people show up with manual tickets."

He said that could cause backups because many of the travelers whose vehicles are now in long-term parking will arrive back at the airport and head for the exit plaza about the same time as drivers who have flown out of town just for the weekend.

Pohl, who works for Republic Parking System, said it wasn't his idea to switch to the backup system. But he said he expects drivers to appreciate the airport's extra caution and show patience at the exits.

"I think people will understand," he said.

Ascom Trindel Corp. of Atlanta, the company that supplies and runs the automated parking equipment, assured Louisville airport officials that its system would work after the calendar changes to 2000.

"We did not advise them to go manual," said Cliff Dykes, director of Anscom's Y2K program.

Dykes said airports that will be using his company's parking equipment on New Year's Eve include the two in Washington and those in Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco and Charlotte, N.C.

DeLong agreed that the Louisville airport's parking operation is "a highly sophisticated computerized system that's Y2K compliant."

But he didn't want to take a chance that the parking system or virtually anything else where computers are involved could go wrong.

LOUISVILLE may be the only airport taking such precautions.

Kentucky's busiest airport -- Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky International -- won't be using any backup systems, said Joe Feiertag, a spokesman assigned to Y2K issues.

"We've tested and upgraded our systems, and we expect any passengers using the airport on Jan. 1 to find it functioning just as usual," he said.

Feiertag, who has discussed Y2K issues with airport officials throughout the region, said he knows of no other airport that's switching to manual systems.

The FAA doesn't know of any other airports going manual, either. "We're not aware of anyone else doing that," spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. But she said the agency requires reporting only on safety-related functions, such as runway lights, and might not know what other airports are doing with their parking or terminal heating.

United Parcel Service, the Louisville airport's busiest airline, didn't suggest going manual, spokesman Ken Shapero said. UPS will have few flights in Louisville this weekend and doesn't expect Y2K problems, he said.

Louisville airport officials made their decisions on their own months ago. "We aren't going to be waiting for some computer to fail," deputy general manager Lowell Pratte said.

After the potential for crisis has passed, he said, they will bring their computerized systems back on line one by one.

THEY ALSO wanted to avoid any chance of negative publicity, Pratte said.

"Can you picture the TV stations coming out here on the 31st and saying: 'Well, it's 11:59 p.m. In one more minute will the runway lights continue to burn?' "

DeLong said the Louisville airport did everything other airports did to make sure its computer systems would still work in the new year, but he decided to go a step further.

"I don't want to be discovering that we have glitches when a computer self-destructs on us," he said.

----------------------------------------------------------------------



-- Linkmeister (link@librarian.edu), December 29, 1999.


I heard on the radio today that San Francisco was also moving to manual operations through yearend. Sorry, no further info from NPR and no link. I thought when I heard it that nobody would be able to notice any difference in efficiency, the way SFO operates on "normal" days.

Once burned, still P-O'd . . .

-- Margaret J (janssm@aol.com), December 29, 1999.


...The substitute system will require employees to do arithmetic and could cause delays and bottlenecks at the exits...

Wrong. Not "delays." Not "bottlenecks." Gridlock. (The secret is out. This is how Y2k is going to bring the world to a screeching halt. Untold millions of people trying to remember if 12 - 3 = 8 or 17...)

-- I'm Here, I'm There (I'm Everywhere@so.beware), December 29, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ