Airline industry warns upcoming 5G deployment could cause hiccups for travelers

Airline industry executives say that if US wireless carriers push forward with plans to begin deploying a specific type of  5G service early next year in spite of interference concerns brought to light by the Federal Aviation Administration, travelers could see delays and other disruptions in air travel starting Jan. 5.

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told reporters following a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday afternoon that if AT&T and Verizon continue with their plans to begin using C-band spectrum for 5G service in January, his airline could be forced to divert or cancel about 4% of daily flights, affecting hundreds of thousands of passengers.

"It would be a catastrophic failure of government," Kirby told reporters, according to Reuters.

Last month, the FAA warned about potential interference between key cockpit safety devices and cell towers on the ground transmitting 5G signals. Last week, the FAA issued new directives to the airline industry warning that interference from 5G signals using the C-band spectrum could result in flight diversions, but the agency didn't quantify the impact. 

Kirby, however, put the impact in concrete terms.

"Coming Jan. 5 -- unless something changes -- we will not be able to use radio altimeters at 40-something of the largest airports in the country," Kirby said, according to a Reuters report. "It is a certainty. This is not a debate."

Kirby added that the potential interference issues between the 5G cell towers and the altimeters would require that during bad weather, such as cloud cover or even heavy smog, pilots would be forced to "only do visual approaches" instead of using sensitive instruments to guide their landing.  

Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly told lawmakers at the Senate hearing that if the FAA directive takes effect, it "would be a significant setback" to airline operations.

The wireless industry has repeatedly pushed back on claims that there is harmful interference from 5G in this band of spectrum. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission in November, the wireless industry lobbying group CTIA said that "nearly 40 countries have already adopted rules and deployed hundreds of thousands of 5G base stations in the C-Band at similar frequencies and similar power levels -- and in some instances, at closer proximity to aviation operations -- than 5G will be in the U.S."

The wireless industry's response

Still, AT&T and Verizon, the two biggest winners of a record-breaking spectrum auction for the airwaves in question, have voluntarily agreed to take precautions to make sure cell towers transmitting 5G signals won't interfere with aircraft signals. The carriers, along with experts from the FCC , say there are no serious interference issues. But they say they will take these measures temporarily while the FAA studies the issue. 

"Air safety is of paramount importance, but there is no evidence that 5G operations using C-band spectrum pose any risk to aviation safety, as the real-world experience in dozens of countries already using this spectrum for 5G confirms," a Verizon spokesman said last week when the FAA issued its directive. "While the new directives suggest the FAA plans to further analyze this issue, we are confident that it will conclude -- as the FCC already found -- that 5G over C Band poses no risk to air safety."  

The dispute between the FAA and the wireless industry has called into question whether the 5G deployment plans of companies like AT&T and Verizon will be slowed. The wireless industry spent more than $80 billion on this wireless spectrum, which can transmit 5G signals further than ultra-high-frequency millimeter wave spectrum but still maintain the faster download speeds of low-frequency spectrum. 

Six former chairs of the FCC have criticized aviation regulators for bringing up their concerns at this late stage. 

"The FAA position threatens to derail the reasoned conclusions reached by the FCC after years of technical analysis and study," said a letter sent to the current FCC chair and signed by Republicans and Democrats. The former chairs who signed on were Ajit Pai, Tom Wheeler, Mignon Clyburn, Julius Genachowski, Michael Copps and Michael Powell.

The Biden administration is working with the FCC and the aviation industry to resolve the issues.