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British Airways will have to pay over $300 million to get compliant. (Australian dollars: $517m.)
If BA will, so will its competitirs.
The stock market is not reflecting this. Denial is dominant. But the hard, objective figures say the stock market is wrong.
This is from the AUSTRALIAN FINANCIAL REVIEW (May 13).
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A key figure in the internal revolution at British Airways has revealed that the comprehensive computer revamp forced by the millennium bug and Europe's switch to a new currency would cost the carrier almost £200m ($517m).
Nick Hird, the finance manager, change, for BA, said yesterday the airline had "very firm" deadlines to ensure all its systems were adjusted and bedded down for the year 2000 by December. The massive changes are expected to involve expenditure of £100m, and a similar amount is likely to be required to prepare BA's computer network for the introduction of Euro transactions through the European Monetary Union. BA is the latest airline to disclose the considerable financial burden imposed by the so-called millennium bug, or Y2K, which threatens to play havoc with systems as the digital dates on computers move from 1999 to 2000. . . .
He said the outsourcing of systems support and responsibility for new systems to EDS had cleared the way for Y2K and the other demanding computer initiatives linked with the European Monetary Union to proceed simultaneously.
"We took the decision that if we want to change our systems at the same time for the European Monetary Union and year 2000 we needed extra resources . . . EDS provided that," he said.
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