FAA reports it is near Y2K compliance

The Federal Aviation Administration today said it has fixed and tested all of its systems in need of repair for Year 2000 compliance and is nearly finished installing the fixed systems.

As of today, 88 percent of the FAA's 641 systems are Year 2000-compliant and have been installed, according to Ray Long, director of the FAA's Year 2000 program office. The FAA will complete installing all of its systems by June 30, which is three months after the March 31 deadline that the Office of Management and Budget set for all agencies to have mission-critical systems Year 2000-compliant. Of the FAA's 641 computer systems, 423 are mission-critical.

The FAA also will test for Year 2000 compliance every air traffic control system at Denver International Airport on April 10. The end-to-end test will involve tracking live aircraft with system computer clocks set forward to Dec. 31, 1999, and rolled over to Jan. 1, 2000. While the computers involved in the test will track real aircraft, they will not be used to manage air traffic.

Because every air traffic control system used in the country is in use at Denver, the April 10 test will illustrate whether the Year 2000-compliant systems will work on a national level. "The Denver test is a national test," Long said. "This will signify that the National Airspace System will operate."