The International Air Transport Association (IATA), the main lobby group for the aviation industry, said airlines still won't be ready for the July 2023 rollout of 5G wireless service at major airports.
Telecommunications giants Verizon and AT&T agreed last week to delay some of the rollouts of 5G service near certain airports over concerns that the high-tech update will interfere with planes' communication systems.
The plan to hold off on implementing some of the service until July of 2023 is backed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
But according to our sister publication Travel Weekly, IATA believes that still isn't enough time for airlines to retrofit planes with updated altimeters, the instrument used to measure how high a plane is off the ground when landing in bad weather and visibility is low.
"I'm willing to place money on it right now that if it stays as projected, we will see massive disruptions," Nick Careen, IATA's senior vice president of operations, safety and security, said today during IATA's annual meeting in Doha, Qatar. "The FAA claims there is consensus on this date, which there isn't."
But FAA acting administrator Billy Nolen believes airlines can meet the deadline of retrofitting planes with new altimeters over the course of a full year.
"We believe we have identified a path that will continue to enable aviation and 5G C-band wireless to safely coexist," Nolen said last week. "We appreciate the willingness of Verizon and AT&T to continue this important and productive collaboration with the aviation industry."
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