US Airline CEOs warn of “catastrophic” disruption from 5G development

The aviation industry is facing “catastrophic” disruptions from the rollout of a new 5G service this week, airline executives have warned.

In a letter sent Monday to U.S. transportation and economic officials and obtained by NBC News, CEOs of major airlines said the launch could ground planes and leave “tens of thousands of Americans” stranded abroad.

The warning came ahead of Wednesday’s rollout of the new C-Band 5G service from telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon. It also comes as airlines continue to struggle with the fallout from widespread flight cancellations driven by the proliferation of the omicron variant of Covid-1[ads1]9 and a series of winter storms that caused travel chaos across the United States

The airlines warned that the 5G signals risk interfering with safety equipment that pilots depend on to take off and land in bad weather.

“Unless our major hubs are cleared to fly, the vast majority of the travel and cargo audience will be largely grounded,” they said in the letter, which was signed by CEOs of American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue, along with leaders of UPS and FedEx.

“Immediate intervention is needed to avoid significant operational disruptions for air passengers, dispatchers, the supply chain and the delivery of necessary medical supplies,” the letter said.

Without approval, it added: “To be fair, the nation’s trade will stop.”

The letter was addressed to National Economic Council Director Brian Deese, Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Stephen Dickson and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Jessica Rosenworcel.

Fifth generation wireless technology, widely known as 5G, promises to deliver ultra-fast Internet speeds, extra bandwidth and increased connectivity, with telecommunications companies around the world struggling to roll out the service.

Both AT&T and Verizon have previously insisted that 5G networks work safely without interruption in almost 40 countries and will do the same in the United States. They declined to comment further on Monday.

The concern is that the air wave spectrum used by 5G technology may collide with the signals used by radio altimeters, measuring instruments that help pilots determine the distance from the ground to the bottom of an aircraft during low visibility operations.

Both companies have agreed to maintain buffer zones around at least 50 airports to reduce the possibility of disruption. And the launch of the new 5G service on Wednesday comes after an already two-week delay that was requested by the Ministry of Transport in response to concerns from air traffic controllers.

AT&T and Verizon initially rejected the government’s request in early January, but reversed the course and agreed to a two-week delay.

At the time, Buttigieg said talks between the FAA, major airlines and wireless operators were “healthy.”

The airline’s executives said they wanted the service to be rolled out “everywhere in the country, except within the roughly 2 miles of runways at airports at affected airports.”

“This will allow the deployment of 5G while avoiding harmful consequences for the aviation industry, the travel public, the supply chain, vaccine distribution, our workforce and the wider economy,” they said, suggesting that the 5G rollout could also potentially affect the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

When the 5G service goes live on Wednesday, the FAA has said it will take precautions to ban pilots from using altimeters when landing at more than 80 airports near 5G locations. Major airports in Dallas, New York, Chicago and Seattle are among those expected to be affected.

The FAA said it would “continue to ensure that the traveling public is safe when wireless companies distribute 5G.”

“The FAA continues to work with the aviation industry and wireless companies to try to limit 5G-related flight delays and cancellations,” it said in a statement.

On Sunday, it said it had cleared an estimated 45 percent of the US commercial fleet to “make low-term landings at many of the airports where 5G C-bands will be deployed” as of Wednesday.

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But in a statement shared with NBC News, United Airlines said the federal government’s current 5G development plan would “have a devastating effect on aviation.”

The airline said the resulting chaos could potentially adversely affect as many as 1.25 million United passengers.

It said the airlines wanted the US government to draw up guidelines to ensure that 5G technology could be distributed safely.

“We do not want to compromise on security – period. But governments in other countries have successfully developed guidelines to ensure the secure distribution of 5G technology, and we are simply asking the US government to do the same,” the airline said.

“We ask the Biden administration to act quickly and use the same common sense solutions here that have obviously worked so well around the world,” it said.

Tom Costello, Jay Blackman, Jay Varela, Jo Ling Kent and Ahiza García-Hodges contributed.