Integral to executing each of FAA’s programs are extensive information processing and communications technologies. Further, its strategic plan—defining program management responsibilities and providing an approach to addressing the millennium challenge—has yet to be made final. Little Time Remains for Critical Renovation, Validation, and Implementation Activities, Placing January 1, 2000, Readiness at Risk

One result of delayed awareness and assessment activities is that the time remaining for renovation, validation, and implementation can become dangerously compressed. Renovation, validation, and implementation activities are the three critical final phases in correcting Year 2000 vulnerabilities. However, because of the agency’s delays in completing its awareness and assessment activities, time is running out for FAA to renovate all of its systems, validate these conversions or replacements, and implement its converted or replaced alternatives. Should the pace at which FAA addresses its Year 2000 issues not quicken, and critical FAA systems not be Year 2000 compliant and therefore not be ready for reliable operation on January 1 of that year, the agency’s capability in several essential areas—including the monitoring and controlling of air traffic—could be severely compromised. This could result in the temporary grounding of flights until safe aircraft control can be assured. Our report being released today makes a number of specific recommendations to increase the likelihood that FAA systems will be Year 2000 compliant on January 1 of that year. At a minimum, this would include issuing a final FAA Year 2000 plan providing the Year 2000 program manager with the authority to enforce Year 2000 policies and outlining FAA’s strategy for addressing the date change; assessing how its major business lines and the aviation industry would be affected if the Year 2000 problem were not corrected in time and using these results to help rank the agency’s Year 2000 activities; completing inventories of all information systems and their components, completing assessments of all inventoried systems to determine criticality and whether the system will be converted, replaced, or retired; determining priorities for system conversion and replacement based on establishing plans for addressing identified date dependencies; developing plans for validating and testing all converted or replaced crafting realistic contingency plans for all business lines to ensure the continuity of critical operations; and developing a reliable cost estimate based on a comprehensive inventory and completed assessments of the various systems’ criticality, and how their needs for modification will be addressed.
Why GAO Did This Study

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO discussed the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) efforts to address the year 2000 problem, focusing on: (1) FAA's reliance on information processing; (2) where the agency stands today; (3) what remains at risk; and (4) what GAO recommends must be done to increase the likelihood that FAA systems will be year 2000 compliant by January 1 of that year.

What GAO Found

GAO noted that: (1) many of FAA's systems could fail to perform as needed when using dates after 1999, unless proper date-related calculations can be assured; (2) the implications of FAA's not meeting this immovable deadline are enormous and could effect hundreds of thousands of people through customer inconvenience, increased airline costs, grounded or delayed flights, or degraded levels of safety; (3) FAA's progress in making its systems ready for the year 2000 has been too slow; (4) at its current pace, it will not make it in time; (5) the agency has been severely behind schedule in completing basic awareness activities, including establishing a program manager with responsibility or its year 2000 program and issuing a final, overall year 2000 strategy; (6) further, FAA does not know the extent of its year 2000 problem because it has not completed key assessment activities; (7) specifically, it has yet to analyze the impact of its systems' not being year 2000 compliant, inventory and assess all of its systems for date dependencies, make final its plans for addressing any identified date dependencies, or develop plans for continued operations in case systems are not corrected in time; (8) until these activities are completed, FAA cannot know the extent to which it can trust its systems to operate safely using dates beyond 1999; (9) delays in completing awareness and assessment activities also leave FAA little time for critical renovation, validation, and implementation activities--the final three phases in an effective year 2000 program; and (10) with under 2 years left, FAA is quickly running out of time, making contingency planning even more critical.