September 30, 1999

Y2K has the capacity to severely disable the transportation industry. Luckily, however, the airline and travel industries have gone to great lengths to ensure that travel on the air, sea, and land will be safe and uninterrupted on New Year's Day. To a very great extent, I believe this will be the case. However, there continues to be genuine Y2K-related problems in foreign countries that are significantly less prepared.

Recently, the State Department prepared a detailed travel advisory characterizing the level of safety for 194 countries. Each country has dealt with the approach of the new millennium in a different way, and will vary in Y2K readiness come January 1. The State Department’s public advisories indicate that certain countries will be much safer than others. The U.S., Canada, England and Australia are each expected to fare well during and after the date-change. Other countries such as India, China and Russia may be more susceptible to Y2K problems, therefore it would be appropriate to caution people against traveling to those areas. In fact, a number of Asian-based airlines are drawing up plans for alternative routes to Europe in order to avoid flying over India. It seems India's own Air Traffic Controllers' Guild is worried about the Y2K readiness status of its aviation and airport industry.

When the State Department issues an advisory for a certain area of the world, factors such as the continuing availability of medical services, telecommunications, and utilities are equally important to travel as actual transportation systems. Therefore, just because planes will not fall out of the sky and ships will not sink, it does not necessarily mean that all will go well. We must look at the picture as a whole before making a decision about where to go during the date transition. Recently, warnings have circulated within Japan and Great Britain about the risks involved with traveling during Y2K. In fact, the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA), a union which has 7,000 members, stated this past July that they will not fly to areas they regard as unsafe. This means that pilots must be trained and briefed on flying alternative routes given that some skies are potentially not as friendly as others.

Indeed the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General tells us that:

• 34 of 185 nations have not yet responded to the International Civil Aviation Organization’s request for status information on aeronautical services (airlines, airports, and air traffic control). Approximately one million passengers flew between these 34 countries and the U.S. last year.

• An interagency committee ( DOT, DOD, and DOS) reviewing ICAO information about the 89 countries that account for 97% of U.S. international passengers, has determined that there is insufficient information available for assessing the Y2K readiness of 28 (or almost 1/3) of the countries.

• And, even in this country, almost 2,000 of 3,300 U.S. air carriers surveyed by FAA did not respond to the FAA survey. All were smaller carriers.

Despite this last statistic, the United States is more prepared than any other country in the world. Problems in this country are more likely to create inconveniences rather than safety issues. A major concern of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) is how ready state and local governments traffic management systems, traffic signal systems, and other Intelligent Transportation Systems are that make road travel convenient and delay-free. These systems are operated solely by state and local governments, and do not depend on the Federal government for supervision or maintenance. This is not to say that travel should be avoided over the holiday season, only that you should factor Y2K into travel plans much as you would factor in other potential problems such as bad weather or holiday traffic.

Here in the District, and in other large cities across the nation, people will use trains as part of their means of holiday transportation. The railway system is a highly interconnected system and citizens should be aware of potentialities that may exist there. During Hurricane Floyd the central operations center of CSX railway was understaffed, causing a total shutdown of commuter trains as far as eight hundred miles away. Though Y2K related problems are not necessarily expected to occur in this area, no one can really be sure until we get there, and even then, no one can be sure how far-reaching problems may be. The possibility always exists for unanticipated problems to erupt in one place, causing disruptions in another, which is the very nature of the Y2K problem. A more thorough assessment will be provided by the Department of Transportation, which will give us a better understanding of how contingency plans would be followed in the case that disruptions actually occur. In any case, people should remember that Y2K could cause normally heavy travel days to be wrought with disruptions and delays.

A hundred million Americans travel to work everyday in planes, trains and automobiles. Millions of students depend on buses and trains to get to school. During and after the New Year there will potentially be millions of people traveling to various destinations nationwide and worldwide. There is no question of the importance of this issue. We look forward to hearing from our witnesses today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.