Airlines Want Reimbursement for Retrofitting Gear After Upper C-Band Auction
Wireless carriers, who would be on the hook, have opposed the idea.
Jake Neenan
WASHINGTON, May 8, 2026 – The airline industry thinks it should be reimbursed for the billions it will cost to shield essential plane equipment from interference by wireless carriers in the upper C-band.
Representatives from a major aviation industry group met with top staff at the Federal Communications Commission to make their case Tuesday, according to a filing posted Friday.
The carriers, who would be on the hook for those payments after the spectrum is auctioned next year, don’t like the idea.
The FCC is under a Congressional directive to auction at least 100 megahertz of the upper C-band (3.98-4.2 GigaHertz (GHz)) by July 4, 2027. Airplane altimeters, which tell pilots and air traffic controllers how high planes are, use the spectrum directly above that, and the current equipment can’t accommodate any mobile use in the upper C-band.
The airline industry is thus aiming to retrofit its fleets with the new gear as soon as it can. Standards for the upgraded altimeters are still in development and scheduled for publication in 2027.
The industry told the FCC in March it can retrofit many of the most essential aircraft by the end of 2029, and finish them by the end of 2030. Lower priority business and government aircraft would take at least two years longer under the plan.
That timeline, faster than the industry had previously estimated, is contingent on airlines receiving both reimbursement costs and extra payments to incentivize faster clearing, Airlines for America (A4A) told the FCC in March. The effort will likely cost at least $4.5 billion, the group estimates, and 58,000 units will need to be upgraded.
CTIA, the major wireless industry group, has opposed reimbursement payments for altimeter retrofits. The FCC sought comment on whether it should require them last year. The reimbursement and acceleration payments would be separate from what winning bidders pay for their licenses.
The wireless industry paid $9.7 billion to incumbent satellite companies to clear the lower C-band after it was auctioned in 2020, and said it wasn’t opposed to paying them again to vacate the upper C-band.
But CTIA argued in reply comments in February that relocation costs were usually reserved for incumbents that had to vacate auction spectrum for bidders to use it, and that that didn’t apply to airlines. The group said work had been ongoing for years on new altimeter standards, and the upgrades would have happened anyway regardless of what the FCC was doing.
Representatives from the group and the major wireless carriers met with FCC staff on April 20 in part to argue there was “no basis” to altimeters because “cost reimbursement is only available when the reimbursable costs are necessitated by the transition.”
In the Tuesday meeting with Airlines for America, which included Arpan Sura, a top advisor to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, aviation representatives argued that the impending auction was the reason the aviation industry was scrambling to retrofit all existing altimeters as fast as possible.
The Federal Aviation Administration has said it expects to codify an initial retrofit deadline in 2029. It cites the auction in its proposal for new altimeter rules.
“Here, the near term introduction of Upper C-Band 5G is prompting the requirement that [airline and cargo plane] operators undertake an entirely new and unexpected expense — the retrofitting or replacement of altimeter transceivers on all existing aircraft,” Airlines for American told the FCC.
The aviation and wireless industries are also at odds on the FAA’s proposed coexistence standards for upper C-band, which CTIA thinks would be too restrictive for auction winners. Airlines for America and other aviation groups have taken the FAA’s side.
“The Commission should work closely with the FAA to ensure that any new limits on Upper C-band emissions into the 4.2-4.4 GHz band are based on sound engineering and a realistic view of wireless deployments to make the most efficient use of scarce spectrum resources,” CTIA wrote in a filing following an April 28 meeting with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty’s legal advisor.
