Major international airlines rushed on Tuesday to rejig or cancel flights to the United States on the eve of a 5G wireless rollout that triggered safety concerns, despite two wireless carriers saying they will delay parts of the deployment. The Federal Aviation Administration has warned that potential 5G interference could affect height readings that play a key role in bad-weather landings on some jets and airlines say the Boeing 777 is among models initially in the spotlight. Despite an announcement by AT&T and Verizon that they would delay turning on some 5G towers near airports, several airlines still canceled flights. Others said more cancellations were likely unless the FAA issued new formal guidance in the wake of the wireless announcements. The world's largest operator of the Boeing 777, Dubai's Emirates, said it would suspend flights to nine U.S. destinations from Jan. 19, the planned date for the deployment of 5G wireless services.

Several companies are building unmanned flying vehicles from scratch, but autonomous aviation startup Xwing is taking a different approach by focusing on software for existing aircraft. Now, the company says it's achieved a major milestone by completing the first fully autonomous gate-to-gate demonstration of a commercial cargo flight. The breakthrough saw a remotely-piloted Cessna Grand Caravan 208B utility plane (equipped with the startup's AutoFlight software stack) leave the gate, taxi, take-off, land and return to the gate by itself. Xwing says that all traffic control interactions were done remotely from the ground. The startup believes that by retrofitting existing aircraft with its autonomous system it can get to market sooner by overcoming the regulatory and technical hurdles others face.