Garvey celebrated New Year's Eve at midnight GMT (7 p.m. ET) 31,000 feet (9,449 meters) feet over western Tennessee   RESOURCES CNN TRAVEL: · Y2K travel news · Tips and Web links TRAVEL MESSAGE BOARDS: · Y2K weekend travel · Future of travel · New Year destinations   Celebrations • The celebrations guide • Your Millennium Pictures • Panorama: New Year's in New York • 2000 chat calendar • Gallery: Enter another world Stories • Apostles of the Apocalypse: Are we ready for the end? • The great millennium misunderstanding Y2K • Preparation pays off • Your Y2K forum The Future • A virtual peek into what's to come The Past • A thousand years of history   ALSO For more ITN millennium coverage, visit ITN on line.

December 31, 1999
Web posted at: 9:48 p.m. EST (0248 GMT)

In this story: Fixed and declared ready Slow day for U.S. airlines Amtrak, cruise lines RELATED STORIES, SITES

(CNN) -- The chief of the United States' Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported late Friday that the transition into the year 2000 had gone smoothly for the nation's air traffic control systems.

Jane Garvey participated in a conference call shortly after midnight GMT (7 p.m. ET) aboard an American Airlines flight en route from Washington to Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. "Aviation has reached the year 2000," Garvey told U.S. President Bill Clinton, "and I am pleased to report to you and (Transportation) Secretary Rodney Slater that the nation's airspace system is up and running safely and efficiently."

Indeed, at "Zulu midnight," there were 2,415 planes in the air over the United States, according to officials at Garvey's base, the FAA Center in Herndon, Virginia.

Slater and John Koskinen, head of Clinton's Y2K council, also participated in the call. Koskinen was aboard a flight headed to New York, and Slater was at the FAA Center.

Garvey's flight was a good-faith gesture, timed as it was because air-traffic control computers are set to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), also known as Universal Coordinated Time or "Zulu" time. It reached 12 a.m. Saturday at 7 p.m. ET on Friday. That's the moment, of course, at which Y2K bug theorists have suggested that programming glitches could cause technical difficulties in such heavily computerized contexts as flight and air traffic control. But Garvey said everything went smoothly.

"I'm proud to say we have transitioned in a very successful way," Garvey said during the conference call.

From Dallas/Fort Worth, Garvey was to fly to San Francisco, landing shortly after 12 a.m PT (8 a.m. GMT). Koskinen was to return to Washington after a brief stop in New York.

The 10 largest U.S. airlines report spending some $650 million on Y2K work, according to filings with regulators. In early December, the FAA reported that it had spent $368 million preparing its systems. Because computers are programmed to read the year by the last two digits, there has been concern that unprepared systems could read "00" as 1900, causing the "Y2K bug" glitches or failures.

The government took last-minute precautions Thursday, repairing a bug in critical air traffic computers. Garvey said technicians finished applying a late software patch Thursday to the FAA's critical "HOCSR" computers, which process flight plan and radar data for controllers.

The glitch turned up during continued testing of the agency's systems, which were declared Y2K-ready in June. "We're continuing to test right up to the last moment," Garvey said at the time. "We erred on the side of caution. The patch is in. It's been fixed. It's a very, very minor issue."

The union representing FAA employees, the Professional Airways Systems Specialists, said the bug could have caused air traffic controllers to lose data from their screens and endanger passenger lives. The union, which is in negotiations, first disclosed the repairs.

Many airlines had cut back on normal flights or didn't fly at all over the New Year holiday. It's believed that concerns about potential Y2K computer problems and possible terrorist attacks further eroded traditionally low New Year's weekend bookings.

FAA officials said they examined runway lighting, emergency vehicles and other safety and security-system components at 565 American airports served by commercial airlines and declared them ready.

United Airlines, the largest U.S. carrier, trimmed flights by 27 percent on Friday and 15 percent on Saturday because of low demand. Spokesman Joe Hopkins said the carrier's officials were confident flights would go smoothly.

"There will be planes in the air, and no, we're not worried," said Hopkins.

At Delta Air Lines, spokesman John Kennedy said the carrier's schedule would probably be cut by about 18 percent. But he noted the airline always eliminates flights on New Year's Eve.

American Airlines canceled 35 percent of New Year's Eve flights, 20 percent of them domestic. Continental said it was cutting 25 percent or 344 flights on New Year's Eve and grounding 15 percent or 169 flights on New Year's Day. (See our carrier-by-carrier roundup for more details on U.S. and international airline plans.)

In the United States, national railroad Amtrak officials said they planned to have some 50 trains pause for up to an hour on New Year's Eve to ensure no Y2K computer problems affected tracks, railroad crossings or safety equipment. As compensation for the delay, passengers were to be given a commemorative train whistle inscribed "I rode Amtrak into the new millennium."

"We believe we are Y2K compliant; this is just a precaution," Amtrak spokesman John Wolf said of the temporary stand down.

At sea, officials of the Carnival cruise line said their ship Sensation would skip its regular trip to New Orleans and dock at Gulfport, Mississippi, instead. That would allow the ship to ring in the new year on the high seas instead of the crowded Mississippi River, according to Carnival spokeswoman Jennifer de la Cruz.

"There is a lot of marine traffic on the Mississippi and we've decided to err on the side of caution and not put our ship in that position," de la Cruz said.

The Transportation Department said dozens of U.S. and international seaports would remain closed during parts of the weekend. Officials said it was mostly a precaution against possible Y2K problems but also the result of light traffic expected during the holidays.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.