Does 5G technology affect air travel?

According to CNN, Emirates, Air India, All Nippon Airways and Japan Airlines have announced reductions in international flights to the United States, temporarily suspending flights to nine U.S. airports amid fears of potential interference from 5G telephony services with critical technologies for planes.

However, they will continue to use very large airports, such as John F. Kennedy in New York, Los Angeles Airport and Washington DC.

In the United States, there has been a real media war between the mobile phone companies (Verizon and AT&T) and the aviation ones, related to the possible interference between the 5G networks and the electronic systems of certain types of planes. Okay, it looks like not all the models in the fleet are affected, because Japan Airlines has announced that they have canceled some flights scheduled to use Boeing 777 planes, but they will operate some flights with Boeing 787 models. what some just.

In particular, the companies’ fears are related to the use of airports that have 5G signal antennas in the immediate vicinity. They can affect, they say, the data on the aircraft’s radar altimeters, equipment that tells pilots the height of the aircraft. However, not all aircraft use radar altimeters, standard altimeters use air pressure for measurement, not radio waves. The latter are not affected by mobile phone antennas. At least that’s what current studies say. Who knows what they’ll say in a few months.

Although both federal telecommunications regulators and mobile operators have repeatedly stated that aircraft equipment will not be affected, the Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order in December banning pilots from using radar altimeters during landing. at airports where visibility is low due to fog. The problem has been regulated in advance in 40 countries (don’t expect this, but Romania is among them, according to Flight Global), which have already introduced 5G technology without any problems without disrupting aviation services.

In a letter sent to the Biden administration on Tuesday, the directors of ten airlines demanded a further postponement of the authorization of 5G systems near airports, stating that about a thousand flights a day will be canceled throughout the United States. The telecommunications industry insists that the fears are unfounded, as there have been no problems in other countries where 5G is already in place.

Now, to be honest, I wouldn’t want to find out on my own that the story is true, but I remember how desperately I remembered to turn off the phone during the flights, 10-20 years ago, just to I forgot to do that once. And guess what: right after landing, the pilot said it was the best race of his career!