Originally Posted by rickair7777

Because their planes tend to sit a lot more more than pax airliners.

If your plane flies a lot, better to pay a high acquisition/lease cost to get the best efficiency possible, which will pay dividends anytime the plane is moving.

If it sits a lot, better to go with older, cheaper, or even second-hand equipment. The less it flies, the lower the ROI on the tech.

That would apply to pilot autonomy too in theory, but in reality that will skip the pax airlines until it's been proven elsewhere... and cargo is the obvious "elsewhere" since mil technology will always be a hybrid man/machine approach since human creativity and flexibility is indispensable in warfare.