New Delhi, 21st January 2022:
Amid the 5G row in the various key airports of United States, the Indian national carrier Air India today said it has resumed six India-US flights on Boeing B777 aircraft after getting Boeing’s go ahead 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 today onwards.
Earlier this week, many airlines across the world including Air India had to cancel flights to US due to deployment of 5G internet in North America citing safety clause related to interfere with aircraft’s radio altimeters. In the recent release, US aviation regulator FAA, in a fresh directive said that 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 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.
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.
