On 2025-03-25 13:41, Dale Ghent via tz wrote:
On Mar 25, 2025, at 14:50, Brian Inglis via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
On 2025-03-25 11:54, Paul Gilmartin via tz wrote:
On 3/25/25 11:40, Brian Inglis via tz wrote:
They have to provide substantial notice to IATA about time changes, and are
fined millions if they make late changes, ...
What entity imposes such a fine?
See late cancellation by Egypt in 2016 where they paid $8M to IATA:
https://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/232511/Egypt/Politics-/Travellers-should-arrive-at-airports-early-due-to-.aspx
https://codeofmatt.com/time-zone-chaos-inevitable-in-egypt/
also discussion here on list.
Wow. IANAL, but I /think/ there's a pretty big difference between the IATA and
the IANA, though. IATA certification of a country's airports is a regulatory
affair. They require fees and dues of its members. There are rules to follow
and they are spelled out. If one does something that causes the IATA
certificates to lapse or be revoked/suspended, then commercial air carriers
will stop using the airports because, I am told, insurance will stop covering
those flights. I imagine that's just the start of a list of pretty undesirable
effects such as happening would have.
In the above article, EgyptAir expected to lose $2M, as would any other (mainly
Arabic/Middle Eastern) airline or travel services doing a lot of business in
Egypt, and the impacts from all the missed connections, plus energy businesses
with cables or pipes terminating in Egypt who missed delivery deadlines (could
possibly claim "force majeur" depending on Ts&Cs), plus all their upstream and
downstream businesses impacted.
Not to mention all the IT teams in every business in or doing business with the
country scrambling to un/make last minute changes to scheduling and time
management systems.
Luckily, most sane time keeping and distribution systems use UTC, so *only*
systems using local times are impacted! ;^>
IANA is not that kind of entity. From what I can tell, neither is PTI or even
ICANN for that matter. One does not enter into any kind of contractual or
enforceable agreement, certainly not as far as timezone-related business is
concerned. In this regard, IANA TZDB is more of a service; a clearinghouse of
information that is /de facto/ canonical for computing-related timezone
information.
It would be nice if we could persuade ICANN that, like IATA, they should fine
ccTLDs millions if they do not provide adequate notice of time changes to this
project. ;^>
I think a more realistic strategy would be to make the technical process of implementing
timezone adjustments more visible and understandable. It would include a clearer
framework for government representatives to *proactively* inform the TZDB group and
coordinators of any pending changes once the relevant law/edict/whatever has been
finalized. There's a lot that would go into such an effort and would be impossible to
summarize succinctly here. The current IANA TZDB website doesn't really say much beyond
"we exist" which, I feel, doesn't help when it comes to expediently getting
changes published, integrated into any given OS's patch cycle, distributed, and applied.
We are, like many open source projects, an unfunded volunteer project, with zero
advertising or communications or anything else staff or budget.
It might not be too hard to accomplish something, if we could get IANA to pass
along to *ALL* ICANN and ccTLD reps that time zones and summer times are part of
their countries' critical business and economic (and political, affecting
reputation of the government and the country) infrastructure and need to be
notified as urgently as the air and travel industry orgs of any time changes ASAP.
Contributors have *strongly* suggested to government staff who posted here, that
they should add this list to their contacts for IATA and other air and travel
orgs to be notified when any time changes are decided.
--
Take care. Thanks, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
La perfection est atteinte Perfection is achieved
non pas lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à ajouter not when there is no more to add
mais lorsqu'il n'y a plus rien à retrancher but when there is no more to cut
-- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
