JAL to use isle flight
as Y2K example

Kyodo News Service

TOKYO -- Japan Airlines Co. President Isao Kaneko said today he will board a JAL flight from Honolulu on New Year's Eve to demonstrate his confidence in the company's measures to avoid problems related to the Y2K computer bug.

"I am assured of the safety measures we took for the Year 2000 computer problem but by boarding a flight, I would like to doubly reassure (people) about safety," Kaneko told reporters at a news conference.

Kaneko will board JAL Flight 75 in Honolulu on Dec. 31, local time. The jumbo jet will be flying over the Pacific Ocean when the clock turns 12:00 a.m. international standard time, and it will land at Narita airport on the afternoon of Jan. 1, JAL officials said.

Kaneko will be in Hawaii for an earlier-scheduled trip to greet business leaders and airline customers there, they said.

In September, Japan's three major airlines -- JAL, All Nippon Airways Co. and Japan Air System -- conducted flights to test computer systems reprogrammed to prevent Y2K-related computer errors or breakdowns.

The presidents of the three firms and Transport Minister Jiro Kawasaki, who participated in the test flights, declared them safe.

JAL and ANA, however, have canceled 26 flights to and from Europe because of an extremely small number of reservations for year-end flights.

The Y2K problem stems from the computer industry practice of representing years by their last two digits, as in 99 for 1999.

Experts fear that could cause computers to misread the year 2000 as 1900 and lead to potential computer failures.