Biden administration officials have warned that an upcoming 5G rollout may cause serious travel disruptions starting July 1.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said roughly 80% of domestic airlines have already made the necessary changes to prevent the 5G from interfering with equipment, but the threat of delays still remains.
“There’s a real risk of delays or cancelations,” Buttigieg said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. “This represents one of the biggest, probably the biggest, foreseeable problem affecting performance this summer.”
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“We continued to see this over the test period of about a month or so,” he said, noting that the New Jersey Turnpike is located alongside the runway.
“It turned out that radar detectors on trucks on Interstate 95 were encroaching on the airlines’ lane markers for the communication ability.”
And while the 5G may be of benefit for airlines, Coffield remained skeptical of the need for the expanded coverage.
“The technology is going to be greater to allow the carriers to use new technologies and be more efficient. However, this wasn’t the solution,” he said.
