Governments are being urged to work closely with the aviation industry to ensure aircraft safety systems can co-exist with next generation 5G mobile services.
The main concern is when 5G C-Band antennas are transmitting near airports or approach flightpaths.
The issue came to a head with the introduction of 5G in the US, causing “enormous disruption” to aviation, according to Iata.
The airline trade body called for governments to ensure close co-ordination and mutual understandings between national spectrum and aviation safety regulators so that each frequency allocation is comprehensively studied and is proven not to adversely impact aviation safety and efficiency.
Iata director general Willie Walsh, speaking at the organisation’s annual meeting in Doha, saids: “We must not repeat the recent experience in the United States, where the rollout of C-band spectrum 5G services created enormous disruption to aviation, owing to the potential risk of interference with radio altimeters that are critical to aircraft landing and safety systems.
`’In fact, many countries have successfully managed to facilitate the requirements of 5G service providers, while including necessary mitigations to preserve aviation safety and uninterrupted services. These include, for example, Brazil, Canada, France and Thailand.”
He claimed the Us Federal Aviation Administration’s unilateral decision to require airlines to replace or upgrade their existing radio altimeters by July 2023 is “deeply disappointing and unrealistic”.
Walsh added: “The FAA has not even approved or certified all the safety solutions that it will require, nor have systems providers been able to say with certainty when the equipment will be available for much of the fleet. So how can there be any confidence in the timeline?
“Furthermore, FAA can provide no guarantee that airlines will not have to carry out further upgrades to radio altimeters as even more powerful 5G networks are deployed in the near future.
“Safety is our highest priority, but it cannot be achieved with this rushed approach.
“The FAA needs to continue working with all stakeholders collaboratively and transparently, including the FCC and the telecom sector, to define solutions and deadlines that reflect reality.”
US carriers had warned of “chaos” in January over the deployment of 5G telecoms.