Airlines worldwide rush to cancel or change flights to US over 5G rollout at airports

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Airlines across the world have scrambled to cancel or change flights heading into the US in a dispute about the planned rollout of 5G near American airports.

Some airlines said they were warned that the Boeing 777, a plane used by carriers worldwide including Emirates, was particularly affected by the new high-speed wireless service.

The cancellations and changes came a day after mobile phone carriers AT&T and Verizon said they would postpone new wireless service near some US airports planned for this week. The US Federal Aviation Administration has cleared a number of aircraft to fly into airports with 5G signals, but the Boeing 777 is not on the list.

Two Japanese airlines announcing cancellations and changes to schedules directly named the aircraft as being affected by the 5G signals.

Emirates announced it would stop flights to many key US locations including Boston, San Francisco, Orlando and Chicago.

In a statement, the airline said the cancellations were necessary due to “operational concerns associated with the planned deployment of 5G mobile network services in the U.S. at certain airports.”

“We are working closely with aircraft manufacturers and the relevant authorities to alleviate operational concerns, and we hope to resume our U.S. services as soon as possible,” the UAE flag carrier airline said.

It will still run flights to Los Angeles, New York and Washington. Many countries have rolled out 5G around their airports without incident.

But the US Federal Aviation Administration worries that the C-Band strand of 5G could interfere with radio altimeters, which measure how high a plane is in the sky.

The FAA has cleared planes with accurate, reliable altimeters to operate around high-power 5G. But planes with older altimeters will not be allowed to make landings under low-visibility conditions, it said.

Part of the problem is the signal strength of the towers, which are permitted to emit at higher levels in the US than in other countries, said the FAA.

Japan’s All Nippon Airways said it had cancelled 20 flights to the US over the issue including to LA, Chicago and New York, while Japan Airlines said eight of its flights were affected Wednesday.

Air India announced on Twitter it would cancel flights to many major US cities “due to deployment of the 5G communications” equipment. It said it would try to use other aircraft on US routes as well.

Meanwhile, Korean Air, South Korea’s biggest airline, switched four passenger planes from Boeing 777s overnight, spokeswoman Jill Chung said.

And Hong Kong’s Cathay Pacific said it is deploying different types of airplanes where necessary to the affected airports but that its flights to the United States have not been affected so far.

The chairwoman of the US Federal Communcation Commission, Jessica Rosenworcel, said that 5G could be safely rolled out near airports as it does in other countries but that regulators must “complete this process with both care and speed”.