The leaders of the nation's largest air carriers warned again on Monday that thousands of flights could be grounded by interference from the new 5G mobile internet technology and that the nation's commerce will grind to a halt.
The airline industry implied in a letter to the transportation secretary that the disruptions in the global shipping network that have fueled inflation could be caused by the plans of AT&T and Verizon.
High-speed 5G internet uses frequencies close to those used by aircraft to measure altitude. The technology can cause a serious safety hazard, according to the airlines. The aviation industry had years to upgrade any equipment that might be affected, according to the argument made by AT&T and Verizon.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the telecommunications companies reached a deal this month, but the protest by the chief executives of Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines and seven other passenger and cargo carriers threw that into question. The F.A.A. said it would not object to the introduction of the new technology after the companies promised to address safety concerns.
The airline executives said in their letter that aircraft manufacturers had told them that the measures promised by AT&T were not enough to prevent interference with aircraft sensors. They wanted the 5G technology not to be used within two miles of 50 airports.
The letter said that multiple modern safety systems on aircraft would be deemed useless. There are huge swaths of the operating fleet that may need to be indefinitely grounded, stranding thousands of passengers and worsening turmoil in the supply chain, the airlines said.
The chief executives of FedEx Express and the United Parcel Service wrote a letter saying that immediate intervention was needed to avoid significant operational disruption.
The spokesman for AT&T did not want to comment. A spokesman for the F.A.A. didn't respond to a request for comment.
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