Airlines warn of flight delays amid a defer-5G clash

New York

AIRLINES warned of increased flight delays after AT&T and Verizon Communications brushed aside a US government request to postpone new 5G service that aviation interests say risks safety because it may interfere with aircraft electronics.

The 2 wireless companies on Sunday (Jan 2) said the request from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Steve Dickson, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), would be "to the detriment of" millions of mobile customers. The companies said they might offer a 6-month pause near some airports.

The FAA and Department of Transportation (DOT) were considering the response on Sunday but airlines and regulators predicted substantial impacts on flight schedules if there aren't some adjustments to the 5G service set to start on Jan 5. The Airlines for America (A4A) trade group, using worst-case assumptions, said there could be up to 350,000 commercial flights impacted per year at a cost of US$2.1 billion.

"Without appropriate mitigations, the 5G deployment around airports could disrupt as many as 345,000 passenger flights - impacting 32 million travellers - in addition to 5,400 cargo flights each year in the form of delays, diversions or cancellations," A4A said in a statement on Sunday.

The new 5G signals would use a set of airwaves made freshly available to mobile communications providers. The frequencies are near those used by altitude-sensing radar altimeters. Airlines and planemakers have said that creates a chance of interference that could leave some landings unsafe. The wireless industry said power levels are low enough to preclude interference, and the gap between frequencies is sufficiently large to ensure safety. The carriers on Sunday cast the 5G roll-out as a priority, citing a race with China to offer extensive high-speed mobile broadband, and escalating demand for wireless service amid the Covid pandemic.

Stakes are high for both industries. The wireless industry paid more than US$80 billion in an auction for access to the frequencies in question, and AT&T and Verizon will rely on them for network upgrades to compete with T-Mobile US in providing the next generation of fast mobile broadband.

In a letter on Friday, Buttigieg and Dickson asked the wireless providers for delay of up to 2 weeks. The officials forecast possible "widespread and unacceptable disruption" to air traffic as planes avoid airports bathed in 5G signals that could affect electronics used during landings.

The wireless carriers responded on Sunday in a letter from each company's CEO: Verizon's Hans Vestberg and AT&T's John Stankey.

"Your proposed framework asks that we agree to transfer oversight of our companies' multi-billion dollar investment in 50 unnamed metropolitan areas representing the lion's share of the US population to the FAA for an undetermined number of months or years," Vestberg and Stankey wrote. They said they might be willing to commit to a 6-month pause in deployment near certain airports that will be selected in negotiations with US officials and the aviation industry.

Some type of restriction on 5G service near runways could limit impacts and give industry groups and regulators more time to study the potential for interference. In their letter on Friday, Buttigieg and Dickson also suggested limiting service near unspecified "priority airports". FAA and DOT officials were reviewing the response from the companies and "US aviation safety standards will guide our next actions", the FAA said. The FAA and industry groups, and an arm of the United Nations, have been raising concerns about use of the radio waves since 2015, the US aviation regulator said on Sunday.

The AT&T and Verizon executives in Sunday's letter said that if aviation interests don't escalate their campaign against the new signals, they would commit to not deploying towers near certain airports for 6 months. The offer is modelled after exclusion zones at airports in France, where 5G service is working on similar frequencies and US airliners have landed. Aviation groups argued that power levels and frequencies approved in other nations, including France, aren't comparable to those in the US.

The A4A in an emergency petition last week asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to delay the planned 5G deployment. The CTIA trade group that represents wireless interests told the FCC to reject the request.

The US transportation officials in their Friday letter requested a delay of "no more than 2 weeks". During that time, the FAA and the aviation industry would identify airports where a buffer zone would permit flights to continue safely. BLOOMBERG