The main US airlines asked the US government on Monday to block the transmission of 5G signals in a radius of 3.2 kilometers (2 miles) around airport runways, two days before that technology is activated.
Airlines for America, which represents the main passenger and cargo carriers, warned that, if that does not happen, the launch this Wednesday 19 of the new 5G frequency bands in the United States will have “catastrophic” consequences on the operations of commercial airlines in the country.
“The domino effect on both passenger and cargo operations, on our staff and on the economy in general is simply incalculable“, the association indicated in a letter sent to various representatives of the federal government .
“To be frank, the nation’s trade will come to a standstill,” he added.
The companies warned that the new frequency bands from 3.7 to 3.8 gigahertz (GHz), the called C-band spectrum, which will give networks greater geographic reach and faster signals requested, can cause many aircraft security systems to become “unusable”.
In particular, airlines and aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus and American Boeing are concerned that new 5G signals may interfere with aircraft radio altimeters, which measure the distance between aircraft and the ground, as well as data systems that help aircraft land.
To address these concerns, telecommunications companies AT&T and Verizon agreed this month to delay the launch of the new 5G frequency bands for two weeks, until this Wednesday 000 January.
The agreement of the US Department of Transportation With these companies, it contemplates the creation in up to 50 airports of areas where the interference of 5G signals will be mitigated for six months, but the airlines assured in their letter that this will not prevent “re restrictions on flights”.
The companies, including American Airlines, United, Delta, JetBlue and Southwest, complained that the list of airports does not include the ones with the most traffic of the country, which can cause “the vast majority of passengers and cargo” to stay ashore.
“On a day like yesterday (in which there was a snowstorm in the east of the country), more than 1, 88 flights and 50,000 passengers would be affected by cancellations, diversions or delays”, they warned.
The Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA) announced this Sunday that it estimates that a dozen types of aircraft, which represent 45% of the United States fleet , they will be able to land when visibility conditions are poor once 5G signals are activated.
The agency plans to approve other types of aircraft in the coming days and calculates that this will allow 50 of the 88 to operate airports most affected by the interference of the new 5G bands, but acknowledged that there may still be changes in the country’s flights.
The letter from the airlines, to which they joined logistics companies such as FedEx and UPS, states that, despite these FAA measures, “there are huge portions of the operating fleet that could have to be grounded indefinitely”.
“In addition to the chaos that this will cause at the national level, this lack of usable wide-body aircraft has the potential to strand tens of thousands of Americans abroad,” the letter alleges.