On Monday, January 17, the CEOs of major U.S. passenger and cargo airlines warned of an impending “catastrophic” aviation crisis on Wednesday, when AT&T and Verizon will launch new 5G services, Reuters reports.
A letter obtained by Politico, titled “Immediate Action to Address 5G Interference with National Aviation System, states, “Despite recent collaboration and data sharing between the telecommunications industry, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the aviation industry, commercial aviation in the United States is facing significant disruption of the traveling and shipping public, based on our evaluation of the data…”
The two-page letter was addressed to Brian Deese, National Economic Council Director, Stephen M. Dickson, Federal Aviation Administrator, Pete Buttigieg, Secretary of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation, and Jessica Rosenworcel, Chairwoman, Federal Communications Commission.
The letter was written and signed by eleven CEOs from major American airlines, including American Airlines and Delta Airlines.
“Immediate intervention is needed to avoid significant operational disruption to air passengers, shippers, supply chain and delivery of needed medical supplies,” the letter reads. “The harm that will result from deployment on January 19 is substantially worse than we originally anticipated for two key reasons.”
First and foremost, the CEOs stated, they are aware that most of the 50 large airports identified by the FAA for relief will continue to be subject to flight restrictions on January 19.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a statement stating they had cleared an estimated 45 percent of the U.S. commercial fleet to perform low-visibility landings at many airports where 5G C-band will be deployed on January 19.
But the CEOs argue the vast majority of the traveling and the shipping public will be essentially grounded unless our major hubs are cleared to fly. The airlines say this means that on a day like yesterday, over 1,100 flights would be canceled, diverted, or delayed, affecting around 100,000 passengers, the CEOs claim.
“Second, flight restrictions will not be limited to poor weather operations,” the airline CEO letter states. “Because radio altimeters provide critical information to other safety and navigation systems in modern airplanes, multiple modern safety systems on aircraft will be deemed unusable causing a much larger problem than what we knew on January 5, 2022. Airplane manufacturers have informed us that there are huge swaths of the operating fleet that may need to be indefinitely grounded. In addition to the chaos caused domestically, this lack of usable widebody aircraft could potentially strand tens of thousands of Americans overseas.”
“The ripple effects across both passenger and cargo operations, our workforce, and the broader economy are simply incalculable,” the letter reads. “Every one of the passenger and cargo carriers will be struggling to get people, shipments, planes, and crews where they need to be. To be blunt, the nation’s commerce will grind to a halt.”
The letter is the latest development in the ongoing battle between the airline and wireless industries, according to Yahoo News. At the start of 2021, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon spent nearly $80 billion to secure the repurposed C-Band spectrum that the FCC had put up for auction.
AT&T and Verizon agreed in November to postpone their C-Band rollouts until January 5 to allow the FAA to address any potential interference issues. They later proposed limiting the power output of cell towers near airports, and on January 4, they agreed to another two-week delay.