Air India restricts US flights over 5G rollout concerns

New Delhi, Jan 19 (EFE).- India’s flag carrier Air India on Wednesday announced restrictions on flights to the United States due to the rollout of 5G mobile phone services in the country, which have caused concerns over the possibility that the new signals could interfere with aircraft systems.

“#FlyAI: Due to deployment of 5G communications in USA, our operations to USA from India stand curtailed/revised with change in aircraft type from 19th January 2022,” the company tweeted.

On Wednesday the airline announced the cancellation of four flights to New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Newark.

The announcement comes after a similar one by Emirates, the state carrier of the United Arab Emirates, which had on Tuesday suspended flights to 9 US cities until further notice.

On Monday, major US airlines urged the government to block the transmission of 5G signals within a 3.2 kilometers radius of airport runways, ahead of the scheduled activation of this technology on Thursday.

The companies have warned that the new bandwidth with frequencies between 3.7-3.8 GHz or the C band, which will offer networks larger geographical reach and faster signals, could render many aircraft security systems unusable.

Earlier this month, the US government was already forced to ask two operators (AT&T and Verizon) to postpone 5G rollout after concerns expressed by American company Boeing and its European rival Airbus, the two largest aircraft manufacturers in the world. EFE

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