Singapore Airlines cancels some New Year's flights September 21, 1999 Web posted at: 12:57 p.m. EDT (1657 GMT) SINGAPORE (AP) -- Singapore Airlines will continue to operate services to Australia and New Zealand throughout New Year's Eve and on January 1, 2000, but it's canceling and rescheduling services in other regions, the company said Tuesday. Affected services include those to and from points in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and South Asia, as well as the carrier's transatlantic services, virtually all of which are scheduled to be in the air at midnight in various time zones, the flag-carrier said. "These services will either be re-timed or, if re-timing isn't feasible, not operated at all," the airline's deputy chairman and chief executive Cheong Choong Kong said in a statement. "We must stress that we have no reason to believe that any of the countries in question will not be ready for the year 2000 crossover," he said. He added, however, that "we operate a lot of medium and long-haul services that fly through the airspace of many countries, and we do not have enough information on every one of these countries to be 100 percent certain that no disruptions will occur." Concerns about the year 2000 stem from computer programs that use two digits to designate the year. Programs could become confused when the year changes from '99 to '00, causing them to spit out bad data or shut down altogether. Singapore has been at the forefront in testing its aviation system, banks and other computer systems against the Y2K bug. "You can argue that we are being over-cautious, but we did not want to risk causing inconvenience to our customers, no matter how small that risk may be," said Cheong. Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.