Milllions of pounds are being spent at Stansted to ensure the airport is not hit by the millennium bug.

British Airports Authority - which runs most of Britain's major airports - is investing £46 million to ensure normal operations at all its seven UK airports over the New Year period.

Now in its third and final year, the programme is on schedule with 90 per cent of non-critical systems such as baggage handling and screening systems set to operate as normal over the millennium.

The overhaul of critical safety systems such lighting and fire services is also progressing against a tightly defined schedule.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA), a traders group representing 236 airlines, is also spending more than £20 million to assist the world's major airports including Stansted to combat problems caused by year 2000 related risks.

And the Civil Aviation Authority, which controls British air traffic control, has funded its own £10 million scheme in order beat the bug.

It has been given blue status by the Government's millennium bug watchdog Action 2000, which means air traffic control is now also set to operate without disruptions on New Year's Eve.

A spokeswoman for BAA plc said all major risks within BAA's direct control had been identified and the company was working to a closely controlled timetable of "fixes" for systems.

She added: "At the same time a series of contingency plans will be developed to deal with any unforeseen eventualities."

Airline KLM uk, a member of IATA and one of the biggest airlines using Stansted, has carried out its own costly programme to keep flights operating

Communications manager Hugo Baas said: "It would be naive of us to say there will definitely not be any problems because as with any business we rely on third parties. If there is any safety issue we will not fly."

The millennium bug is the result of an inability of many business systems and other electronic devices to recognise the date change from 1999 to 2000.

This is because their timing devices only acknowledge the last two digits of any year and may interpret the year change incorrectly assuming it to be 1900 rather than 2000.

The bug has the potential to affect all business equipment and devices that contain electronic chips with a year date function - not just computers.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.