UPDATE Delta Air Lines says it’s updated the radio altimeters in its working airplane fleet to address potential 5G C-band interference. Delta had about 190 planes not yet updated ahead of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s July 1 deadline. The airline said there was “no notable operational impact between July 1 and this week when the work was completed,” Reuters reported.
An airplane’s radio altimeter gives data on a plane’s height above the ground and is crucial for bad-weather landing. Concerns that 5G service could interfere with altimeters led to brief disruptions at some U.S. airports last year as international carriers canceled some flights.
Verizon and AT&T, which paid around a combined $80 billion for the 5G licenses in FCC Auction 107, held off on fully powering their 5G network operations around key airports while the aviation industry’s fears concerning potential interference to the altimeters, was hashed out. After months of talks between the FAA, FCC, Verizon and AT&T, the carriers voluntarily agreed to delay some C-band 5G use until July as air carriers worked to retrofit airplane altimeters, Inside Towers reported.
Despite aviation concerns about possible disruptions caused by wireless carriers now using 5G operations near airports, no major delays were caused by the technology over the July 4 holiday weekend. American, Southwest, Alaska, Frontier and United said earlier all of their planes have radio altimeters that are protected against 5G interference. Delta was a big holdout.
Buttigieg told Reuters in July that the transition to make airlines 5G-compliant went better than expected, with minimal disruptions. Buttigieg said that while airlines were largely prepared, the effort “took a lot of pressure.” He added: “It took multiple moments where we had to really just make sure they could read our body language that we really were serious … I don’t think the airlines believed us early on.”
As of late June, more than 80 percent of the domestic fleet serving U.S. airports had been updated, according to Buttigieg. He wrote to major airlines that “a significant number of aircraft still awaiting retrofit, including many operated by foreign air carriers. This means on bad-weather, low-visibility days in particular, there could be increased delays and cancellations,” Inside Towers reported.
By Leslie Stimson, Inside Towers Washington Bureau Chief
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