Y2K redux: Time for F29

Last Friday, I was due to fly back to San Francisco from New York City. FutureTest 2008 was over, I’d spent a day in BZ East (our Huntington, N.Y. headquarters), and it was time to go home.

My flight, United #5, was set to depart at 6:00am, and I arrived at JFK’s Terminal 7 around 4:30am. Since I wasn’t checking any luggage, the first stop was the EasyCheck-in kiosk.

It wasn’t working right. It would let me check in, but wouldn’t print the boarding pass. I tried another kiosk. Same problem.

So, along with a number of other passengers trying the kiosks, I got into the line for an agent, who gave me the boarding pass. When I told her that Easy Check-in wasn’t working, she said that someone was already working on it.

I thought nothing of it, until reading Saturday’s San Francisco Chronicle. There I learned that it was a February 29 bug! The AP story’s headline: “Feb. 29 confuses United’s software.”

The “Y2K Effect” strikes again!