Leading U.S. carriers warned yesterday of a “catastrophic” aviation crisis ahead of tomorrow’s planned launch of next-generation 5 by communications giant Verizon and AT&T. Large-body commercial planes and cause tens of thousands of Americans to get stuck in destinations outside the United States, while causing “chaos” to American flights.
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“Unless our main ports are approved for use, most of the passenger and cargo public will be grounded,” warned the executives of American Airlines, Delta, United, Southwest and others in a letter quoted by Reuters. UPS. At the same time, top airline CEOs and Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun had a lengthy conversation with Transportation Secretary Pete Boutique and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Steve Dixon to warn of the impending crisis.
The FAA has made it clear that potential disruptions can affect sensitive equipment and cause significant disruptions to aircraft operations performed in poor visibility conditions. The main danger is that the frequencies intended for use in the new deployment may be close to those used to measure the aircraft’s distance from the ground and to enter data into the navigation devices and other safety systems installed on the aircraft. Earlier this week, the FAA said it had given permission for about 45 percent of U.S. commercial aircraft fleets to land in poor visibility conditions at many of the airports where the new 5th generation networks will be deployed, and that they expect to issue more permits ahead of launch tomorrow. Because this list does not include a significant portion of the largest and busiest airports in the US.
In their letter, the heads of the companies warned that on a typical day at this time, there are cancellations, delays or diversions of more than 1,100 flights and 100,000 passengers. Yesterday, airlines also examined the possibility of canceling a number of international flights that are expected to arrive in the United States tomorrow.
The new threat is occurring in an already difficult time for the American and global aviation industry, with corona closures and rising morbidity due to the Omicron variant leading to cancellations and delays of thousands of flights around the world every day, disrupting passenger and air cargo traffic. Severe weather conditions also add to the irregularities. For example, on Sunday, about 2,800 flights in the United States were canceled due to a severe storm that hit certain areas on the East Coast.
The media companies, which won most of the C frequency range as part of an auction that grossed more than $ 80 billion last April, agreed earlier this month to install buffer zones around 50 airports to reduce the risk of disruption, as well as take further steps to reduce potential disruption. For six months. The planned launch of the new networks has been postponed for two weeks, and is due to start tomorrow.
Verizon and AT&T declined to comment this week. According to them, the 5th generation networks in this frequency range have been successfully deployed in about 40 other countries in the world, without causing any disruption to aviation.
United Airlines warned separately on Tuesday that the launch of the network could affect more than 15,000 of its flights and 1.25 million passengers and hit tons of cargo each year.
United has noted that it risks “significant restrictions on regional flights on 787, 777 and 737 aircraft in cities such as Houston, Newark, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago – some of the busiest ports in the United States.”
Airlines are requesting that “Generation 5 be deployed anywhere in the country except within a two-mile (3.2 km) range of runways,” at several major airports.
“Immediate intervention is needed to avoid operational breach by our passengers, cargo companies, supply chains and transportation of essential medical cargo,” the airlines noted, emphasizing that the restrictions would not only apply to activity in severe weather conditions.
“A wide range of state-of-the-art safety systems installed on the aircraft will become unusable,” the companies warned, adding that the scope of the resulting problems is much wider than they thought. “Aircraft manufacturers have informed us that large volumes of the operational fleet may need to be shut down indefinitely,” they concluded. One of the main concerns is that some, or even all, of the Boeing 777s will not be able to land at some of the major US airports once a 5th generation service is launched, in addition to some of Boeing’s cargo planes, officials told Reuters.
According to a report by the Faist Group published last October, the US ranks second in the world in terms of deployment of 5th generation infrastructure, with 279 cities. The leading country is China with a spread of 341 cities and in third place is South Korea, with 85 cities. Also in the opening ten were the UK, Spain, Canada, Australia, Saudi Arabia and Italy. However, in the list of cities with the fastest 5th generation infrastructure, the US is not included. These list Jeongo in South Korea, followed by Nashu City in Taiwan, as well as Riyadh and Dubai. Other cities in the opening ten are Tokyo, Melbourne and Zurich.
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