5G is alarming airlines
Officials say new signals could interfere with altitude equipment, leading to delays; wireless industry says fears are unfounded
Widespread flight delays during snowstorms and conditions of low visibility could occur once new 5G wireless service rolls out in early January, airline executives and aviation officials are warning with increasing alarm.
The officials say the new wireless signals threaten to interfere with equipment on planes and helicopters that track aircraft altitude, which could prohibit landings in poor visibility and create a cascade of delays, diversions and cancellations — a concern the wireless industry says is unfounded.
The issue is coming to a head as White House officials, regulators and industry groups struggle, without result, for agreement before the service starts Jan. 5. AT&T Inc. and Verizon Communications Inc. have offered power reductions. The aviation industry calls such cuts “inadequate.”
The 5G signals will operate in airwaves near those used by radar altimeters, which determine altitude by bouncing radio waves off the ground. The aviation industry says tests show that 5G can interfere with the altimeters, posing hazards, especially during badweather landings. Mobile providers dispute that outcome, saying the 5G signals are sufficiently separated from the frequencies used by altimeters and are set to operate at safe levels.
Jeffrey Shane, a former airline industry official who also served in the U.S. Transportation Department, said flight disruptions were “guaranteed” and predicted “a chaotic impact” on aviation.
If the altimeters are considered unreliable by the FAA, federal regulations would ban many emergency air ambulance flights, the Helicopter Association International said in a filing in the Federal Register.
Medical helicopters transport 40,000 to 50,000 people a year from crashes on roads and from other sites where the altimeters are required, the group said. Those may no longer be permitted in the dozens of major cities where AT&T and Verizon are introducing 5G, the group said.
Similarly, with 5G set to begin in greater Houston and New Orleans, helicopter operations that service oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from those regions could also face new restrictions, the group said.
The prospect of flight disruptions comes as airlines struggle to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, which led to billions of dollars in losses last year. Carriers also have been dealing with staff shortages and thousands of unruly passenger episodes this year, and the industry is concerned the 5G clash will cost as much as $2.1 billion in flight disruptions, according to the trade group Airlines for America.
“If you were to ask us what our No. 1 concern is in the near term, it is the deployment of 5G,” Southwest Airlines Co. CEO Gary Kelly testified at a Senate hearing Wednesday.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and officials from the White House’s National Economic Council met Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
White House representatives didn’t reply to queries about the meeting.
The FAA, faced with even a remote prospect that safety could be threatened by 5G, must act conservatively.
“What that means, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing less than a lot of flights are going to be canceled,” Shane said. He spoke Dec. 10 at a government advisory panel on protecting radio frequency.
Airlines for America said 5G could disrupt as many as 350,000 flights a year, based on some worst-case assumptions.
Wireless providers paid at least $81 billion for rights to the contested airwaves. They rejected predictions of trouble.
“The aviation industry’s fearmongering relies on completely discredited information and deliberate distortions of fact,” said Nick Ludlum, a senior vice president at the trade group CTIA, which includes AT&T and Verizon as members.
“5G operates safely and without causing harmful interference to aviation operations in nearly 40 countries around the world,” Ludlum said in an email.
The FAA and aviation groups say other nations have imposed the kinds of protections they are seeking or that the frequencies used in those countries have been located farther away from those assigned to aircraft equipment.
The FCC, which approved the mobile providers’ airwaves use, has declined to impose additional restrictions and said it is working with aviation regulators to resolve the dispute.
One manufacturer of radar altimeters estimated that 70 percent of airliners equipped with its devices might be prone to interference and, therefore, subject to the FAA’s restrictions, according to two people familiar with the talks.