Federal Aviation Administration: Allowing aircraft to land at airports affected by 5G

Recently, the CEOs of some large passenger and cargo airlines in the United States warned that AT&T and Verizon's preparations to promote 5G services could cause an aviation crisis. According to them, the new C-band 5G service may make a large number of wide-body aircraft unusable, and many Americans may be stranded overseas.

CEOs of airlines such as American Airlines, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlines believe that if large air transportation hubs cannot operate normally, passenger and cargo transportation will come to a standstill. The FAA has previously warned that potential interference could affect aircraft altimeters and affect low-visibility operations.

To this end, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued new rules this week that allow about 78% of commercial aircraft in the United States to perform low-visibility landings at airports affected by Verizon and AT&T 5G deployments. The FAA said it is working to ensure that there is no conflict between onboard altimeters and C-band 5G services, but it is expected that some products will still be vulnerable. For safety reasons, the FAA will prohibit aircraft equipped with such altimeters from landing in low visibility at certain airports to prevent the altimeters from providing potentially erroneous information.

Emirates had previously suspended flights to San Francisco, Dallas-Fort Worth, Orlando, Seattle, Miami, Newark, Houston, Chicago and Boston until further notice. Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways also canceled flights on Tuesday and have now resumed flights following FAA approval.