But will anyone risk travelling next January 1 or in the first few weeks of the uncharted double-zero year? There seems to be some positive news there as well.

CIO Magazine, a bi-monthly with a circulation of 125,000, has been asking executives in a number of polls during the past 12 months if they personally would fly on a commercial airliner on January 1, 1999.

The question arises because of speculation that air traffic systems and perhaps aircraft themselves might fall prey to disruptions from the is-it-1900-or-2000 computer problem the world has been working to solve for some time.

Two polls done last year found 63 per cent and 60 per cent respectively saying they would not fly a commercialairliner on that day. But a third poll asking the same question in early February 1999, found the number not willing to risk a commercial flight had dropped to 41 per cent. Forty-eight per cent said they would fly and another 11 per cent said they were not sure.Meanwhile figures from the travel industry indicate the world is already planning to take to the skies in a big way when the year 2000 rolls around. Much of the traffic seems to be driven by tours and special trips being planned by travellers who want to watch the calendar make its historic turn in exotic locales -- even if the actual millennium does not begin until a year later.

Galileo International, the system that processes about a third of the world's travel reservations through its Galileo and Apollo computer networks, began booking year 2000 travel in January and February 2000.The Galileo system, which serves Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, saw a dramatic increase in reservations for the year 2000 compared to the amount of businessbooked a year ahead in 1998, according to Julie Shepherd, spokeswoman for the company.

"For the month of January 1999, we processed 139,741 bookings for (January) air travel in the year 2000 compared to 34,230 bookings during January 1998, for travel in January 1999," she said.

The Apollo system that serves North America, Japan and parts of the Caribbean processed 34,917 travel reservations for the first four days of January 2000, when it began accepting the same early in February, an increase of more than 13 per cent from a year ago, she said.

The two systems are linked to 158,360 travel agency terminals and connect with 520 airlines, 225 hotel companies, 44 car rental companies and 346 cruise and tour companies in 104 countries.