5G row: Air India resumes flights to US after clearance from Boeing
New Delhi, January 20
National carrier Air India today said it has resumed six India-US flights on Boeing B777 aircraft after the plane manufacturer gave its nod to operate them following technical clearance by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The airline also announced that all flights to the US would normalise from Friday.
Air India had cancelled eight flights on India-US routes on Wednesday due to deployment of 5G internet in North America which could interfere with aircraft’s radio altimeters.
US aviation regulator FAA, in a fresh directive today, said radio altimeters fitted in certain types of aircraft, including B777, will not be affected by 5G services.
Subsequently, an Air India spokesperson informed media that Boeing has cleared the national carrier to operate to the US on B777 aircraft.
“Accordingly, first flight left this morning to JFK (New York). Other flights leaving in the day are to Chicago and SFO (San Francisco). Arrangements to carry stranded passengers are being worked out. Matter regarding B777 flying into the US has been sorted,” the spokesperson said.
The Air India flights that have resumed their operations from Thursday are Delhi-New York, New York-Delhi, Delhi-Chicago, Chicago-Delhi, Delhi-San Francisco and San Francisco-Delhi.
Along with these six flights, two other flights — Mumbai-Newark and Newark-Mumbai — were cancelled by Air India on Wednesday.
Later during the day, Air India said on Twitter that while flights to and from the US were affected in the past two days, normal flight operations will recommence to and from the US “effective 0001 hrs of January 21”.
The FAA had on January 14 said 5G interference with the aircraft’s altimeter could prevent engine and braking systems from transitioning to landing mode, which could prevent an aircraft from stopping on the runway.
Operations to normalise from today
- Air India had cancelled eight flights on India-US routes on Wednesday due to deployment of 5G internet in North America which could interfere with aircraft’s radio altimeters
- US aviation regulator Federal Aviation Administration, in a directive on Thursday, said radio altimeters fitted in certain types of aircraft, including B777, will not be hit by 5G services
- Subsequently, an Air India spokesperson said Boeing has cleared the carrier to operate to the US on B777 aircraft
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