Originally Posted by
Nick Bradshaw
ALPA always assumed there would be a third man in the cockpit until there wasn't. I wouldn't be surprised to see airlines move a lot faster to replace copilots with automation than everyone thinks. History repeats itself. Cargo carriers will be the leaders on this.
I'm sure single pilot ops for 8 plus hour flights will go over extremely well. Heck, anything over 2 hours will require time with no monitoring for physiological needs. This kind of thing is a very long way off.
The technology is one thing, but changing regulations, rest rules, duty limits, etc will be a tough sell. The entire thing will need to be overhauled, and that doesn't include cost to the airline. There is so much red tape to get approval for heavy jets to be single pilot, it's not realistic anytime soon.
It would be far more realistic for these highly automated RJ operators that spend an hour in the air at a time.