AT&T and Verizon paid tens of billions of dollars to secure those radio frequencies. Yes, they will turn a profit, but they invested a lot of money to make that profit. I could flip the argument and say that the airlines - by not putting out the money to update their equipment to keep it within its own radio bandwidth - is valuing profit over safety. Yes, it would be expensive, but why should the expense of one bloated industry prevent another bloated industry from pursuing their business plan?
I have no dog in this fight, and of course I want air traffic to be safe. When the airlines knew that this was coming, however, instead of trying to fix the issues on their side they only petitioned the government to block the cell carriers from using the radio frequencies they purchased (as far as I can determine from what I have read). Again, where the radio frequencies do not overlap there has to be some logical compromise between the two sides and not this “give me my way or I take my ball and go home” philosophy that seems to be driving the current argument.