Abstract

     The rollout of 5G wireless service has been much anticipated by consumers across the U.S. since it will bring faster data download speeds and expanded service; however, the impact to aviation and air travel are as a major issue and the potential impact to aviation has not been estimated or assessed. This paper fills that gap and provides the first analysis of the potential number of flights impacted by 5G at ten of the busiest airports in the U.S. Using detailed historical weather and flight data in 2019 at 10 large hub airports, we find that nearly 15,700 flight arrivals could be directly impacted annually, at the ten airports considered. The geographical and seasonal impact varies significantly with more flights affected by the potential for 5G interference at airports in Seattle and Dallas Fort-Worth and relatively few flights affected at airports in Phoenix and Las Vegas. A case study examining ten years of data at Chicago O’Hare International, a hub for two major airlines, suggests that over 2,400 flights every year could be impacted by 5G interference. Fortunately, there has been increasing cooperation between the cell phone industry and aviation stakeholders to ensure a safe rollout of 5G C-band; this paper provides a significant contribution by documenting the issues and context for aviation operations.

Introduction

     The rollout of 5G wireless service has been much anticipated by consumers across the U.S. as data download speeds will be increased and service expanded. 5G C-band enables data intensive technology for personal and business use, ranging from entertainment such as video games to critical communications for public services (Pham et al, 2020), and provides more consistent, faster speeds and increased capacity. The communications band or “C” band was originally designated for industrial applications and satellite communications and were repurposed for 5G wireless between 3.7 and 3.98 GHz. C-band is one component of the mid-band frequency between 3.3 and 4.2 GHz. The benefits of the new 5G C-band service have been contraindicated near airports by the aviation industry due to the potential for negative operational and safety impacts. Since the 5G C-band frequencies is very close to the Aeronautical Radionavigation Service (ARS) spectrum (as shown in Fig. 1), there is a potential for signal interference which could potentially disrupt the operation of the radio/radar altimeter equipment on many transport aircraft. This equipment is necessary to conduct certain low visibility procedures when weather conditions do not permit use of standard precision or non-precision procedures. The inability of aircraft to safely perform these procedures could generate flight disruptions throughout the system. This fact was underscored by the acknowledgement that over 100 pilot reports of potential 5G interference have been made in the first few weeks of 5G rollout (Levin and Shields, 2022). Additionally, the U.S. Transportation Secretary noted that these issues will not be fixed by the summer flying season (Reardon, 2022).

Conclusions

     As the U.S. and other countries introduce 5G C-band, the need to understand the potential disruption to air travel is apparent. This paper provides the first estimates of the number of flights that could be potentially impacted at ten of the busiest airports in the U.S. These flights conducting low visibility procedures could be delayed, diverted, or cancelled. The number of flights conducting these low visibility approaches varies across seasons and location. Some airports, such as Seattle-Tacoma International could experience a significant impact to flight operations while others such as Harry Reid International in Las Vegas could be minimally impacted. Dallas Fort-Worth International, which area serves as several major airline hubs and headquarters, experiences numerous low visibility flight operations with the greatest monthly variation. The systemic impact from disruptions out of these ten busy hub airports presents a significant risk to travelers and airline operations. These risks include delays and cancelations as well as their direct and indirect economic costs. Further, to highlight the significant potential impact we determined that Chicago O’Hare International had over 27,000 flights conduct low visibility operations in the decade from 2009 to 2019.