Air India Resumes US Flights On Boeing 777 Aircraft After Clearance

Indian flagship carrier Air India on Thursday said that it will resume its flights to the United States (US) on Boeing 777 aircraft which had canceled due to the deployment of 5G communications.

Notably, Air India had to cancel several flights between Delhi, Mumbai to New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Newark following concerns that 5G rollout there could interfere with Boeing B777’s radio altimeters posing a safety risk.

Now, the airline said that it has received clearance from the aircraft manufacturer to operate flights to the United States using Boeing 777.

“Boeing has cleared Air India to operate to the USA on B777. Accordingly, first flight has left this morning (Thursday morning) to JFK (New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport),” said Air India.

The airline in a tweet also said, “Flight operations to/from destinations in the USA were affected during last two days. We would like to inform our passengers traveling to/from destinations in the USA that effective 0001hrs of 21st January 2022 normal flights operations will recommence to/from the USA.”

#FlyAI : Flight operations to/from destinations in USA were affected during last two days.

We would like to inform our passengers traveling to/from destinations in the USA that effective 0001hrs of 21st January 2022 normal flights operations will recommence to/from USA.

— Air India (@airindiain) January 20, 2022

It is worth mentioning that Air India on Wednesday canceled at least 14 flights between India and the US which left hundreds of passengers stranded.

How 5G Deployment Affect Aircrafts?

United State’s aviation regulator the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned that the new 5G technology could interfere with key cockpit instruments such as altimeters, which measure the altitude of the aircraft as both C Band of 5G technology (3.7GHz-3.98Ghz range) that is being rolled out in the US and aircraft altimeters (4.2-4.4 GHz range) operate at similar frequency ranges.

The rollout of 5G primarily impacted the operations of Boeing 777 and 747 aircraft while the FAA asked Boeing 787 operators to take “additional precautions” when landing on wet runways at affected airports.

Altimeters are key for landing aircraft safely during bad weather conditions when the visual approach is difficult to obtain.