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August 27, 1999 Web posted at: 8:03 a.m. EDT (1203 GMT) by David Legard

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SINGAPORE (IDG) -- Pilots with Australia’s national airline Qantas Airways will deliberately report in sick over the New Year period rather than fly international routes covered by potentially noncompliant air traffic control (ATC) operations, a senior Qantas captain said.

The captain, who declined to be identified, told the IDG News Service that other pilots are happy with Qantas’ own preparations for the year 2000 (Y2K) problem and are prepared to fly routes within Australia, but that routes via Asia to Europe pass through several sectors in which pilots have no confidence in the year-2000 preparations of ATC operators.

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Particularly hazardous sectors include Indonesia, India and the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which Europe-bound flights overfly, according to the Qantas captain.

"I was recently flying over one of these countries when the local ATC operator called me, and along with his voice, I could hear a rooster crowing in the background. Until then, I had imagined them as working from a high-tech air-conditioned office," he said.

Qantas, which has never suffered a fatal accident in its 65-year international flying history, has no official plans to suspend flights over the millennium period, but said in a statement in March that it "may vary its flying patterns if it considers that the integrity of any airspace zone, ATC system, or airport" does not meet its operational requirements.

Singapore Airlines said recently that it will "not operate any service where safety is in doubt" due to year 2000 ATC shortcomings in the region. The airline is working closely with international aviation organizations to gather information on the state of readiness of airports and ATC systems and will announce more details in early October of any service curbs, it said.

Vietnam Airlines has said it will not fly over the millennium changeover period and Indonesian airline Garuda has indicated it will probably also not fly then.

The year 2000 problem is caused by computer systems or programs which use a two-digit date field instead of a four-digit date field. Such systems do not know whether "00" means 1900 or 2000, possibly causing them to malfunction or shut down on Jan. 1, 2000.

David Legard is Singapore correspondent for the IDG News Service.