People from some of our largest airlines across the U.S. asked the Biden Administration to put a pause on the planned rollout of 5G tomorrow, warning that it might cause transportation and economic issues.
The Federal Aviation Administration has prepared to put in place safety restrictions that will be highly disruptive to airline passengers and shipping.
In the U.S. 5G services are planning to launch on January 19th using frequencies in a radio spectrum, called C-band.
The 5G rollout involves a new combination of power levels, that could affect flight operations.
“Right now, I believe there’s 50 airports that have been identified by the FAA of having this 5g impact. Most of them are larger airports” said Buck Taft, Airport Director for the Tri-Cities Airport. “There’s some scattered around, but what this is doing is it interferes with some aircrafts ability to operate in low visibility conditions.”
Those low visibility conditions could be places like Seattle or Portland where there might be clouds hanging low in the sky.
So is this going to affect Tri-cities airport?
“We were not one of the airports on the list but what we’re expecting is, if there are issues at any of the larger like Portland or SEA-TAC we will have diversions come to our airport, so that’s kind of the impact that we see at this time” said Taft.
So what kind of effects could airports see when 5G is released?
“For instance, when it’s really cloudy like say in Seattle and visibility is very low they have instrument approaches that they use that their instruments guide them down right in line with the runway where they can touch down” said Taft. “What they’re saying is this 5G is impacting the ability to do that safely.”
The FAA was given a two week delay for the 5G rollout by the cellphone carriers and in those two weeks they have received vital transmitter location and power level information from the wireless companies.
Worked with airlines to help manage and minimize potential delays and cancellations in affected areas.
They also have determined that some GPS guided approaches may be used at certain airports.
And, they have been working with airlines on how their altitude meters are safe and reliable in 5G.
As of right now we shouldn’t expect too many delays at our local airports with the 5G rollout but some of our bigger airports might have some technical impacts, causing delays.
For more information about what the FAA is doing with 5G click HERE.
