Just when you thought that it was safe to get back on a Chinese airliner . . .
By now you've probably heard that China Southern Airlines' top executives have decided to bin their millennium party plans and spend their New Year's Eve flying aimlessly around the world.
Yes, president Yan Zhiqing and senior vice-president Han Mazhang will be suspended aloft when the clock strikes 12. Mr Yan will be jetting California-ward on a Boeing 777 while his lesser colleague makes the Guangzhou-Singapore hop on an Airbus.
But another of the company's vice-presidents just had to go and take things that one step further. Not content to drum his fingers on an armrest and take in an in-flight movie, Li Fenghua plans to celebrate the new millennium by flying a Boeing 757.
The press release assures us he's a certified and experienced commercial pilot. No word on how long it's been since the pen-pusher last graced a cockpit.
Mr Yan says that the vice-president's decision to take control of a China Southern aircraft proves that 'we truly will greet the Y2K challenge with our own hands'.