gloopy

I can see them asking for the first. But until and unless we're under a massive duress CBA negotiation/BK/etc, I can't see that being given up. Even if "everything is for sale" it doesn't matter because they can't afford it. The savings from that, of which we would only get a fraction of anyway, are just too minor to amortize across the entire voting majority to inceitivise something that causes that much direct and trickle down harm.

The second is in a similar vein. UAL used to (and I think still does?) have "bunkie lines" where they were basically guaranted "cruise pilots". They were still line qualled seniority list FO's though, with the one exception of guaranteed currency training so there really isn't a whole lot of savings there.

What I think you may be referring to is some kind of Euro style MPL seat warmer with much lower qualifications, experience and training. There would be some savings there but again I don't think it would be very much. To really pay out to the EPS money incinerator, ALPA (etc) would have to agree to enact a significant B scale. Not likey to happen, away from the courthouse steps anyway.

The real threat from that would be the scab adjacent FoC scam airlines. The People's Worker's Party of Working People would never let that happen so we're pretty safe.

JamesBond

I don't disagree with any of this. I was just saying that I am surprised it hasn't been broached yet

rickair7777

Irrelevant... there was always a human to fall back on when they eliminated radio, nav, FE.

Now we have one human with a backup for redundancy. Going to single human is a huuuge step, since there's no human redundancy left.

Software can't replace a human in our jobs. The autonomous vehicle people have essentially thrown in the towel as far as road vehicles that are safe enough to certify and more importantly insure. They're still working on it, but they now admit they have no idea now how long it will take or even the path to get there. That last 0.0001% is a real biatch...

You could probably make the safety case for cargo over water, or specially selected over-land routes with low population density to essentially eliminate the liability... as long as you can afford to lose the plane and cargo. Regulators and underwriters might go for that.

Caveman

The key is the ever lowering the performance and intelligence of the human as the benchmark for these autonomous systems to exceed.

At the current rate of regression of the human race in general, and the progression of Moore's law...those two lines are likely to intersect sooner vs later.

Most late teens can't drive a car, ride a motorcycle, or even operate a lawnmower.

​​​​

Boomer

Most of the Part 121 safety advancements in the last 20 years have come from improved CRM.

Single-pilot operations eliminate CRM.

rickair7777

Moore's law is not a "law" that has any mathematical basis. It's an approximation of a *portion* of a complex trend in industrial advances. It's also very specific to a specific kind of hardware, has nothing do with software or anything remotely related to AI.

1. It's a very rough approximation which will not extrapolate infinitely... once you get miniaturization down to the point where chip materials start behaving at the molecular level then moore's law is done. And we're almost there.

2. It's very specific to processor speed (based on hardware advances). That doesn't translate to AI, it just means you can do 2+2=4 a whole lot of times per second. AI still requires somebody to design an algorithm which produces AI behavior. Turns out it's hard for human brains to conceptualize an algorithm that replicates the human brain. Gee, big surprise... kind of like expecting your ipad to be able to design an ipad.

But I don't disagree about where society is trending...

Lou Reed

Hmmm. By that same argument, won't removing the human element eliminate the 80% of air accidents that human error is responsible for?

Boomer

Not sure if you’re being sarcastic. CRM is designed to reduce human error.

3 green

I honestly don't think anyone from airline mgmt. cares. If something is approved by the FAA and saves money that is all that really matters to them. Look what they have done to airline training programs now(teach yourself, then climb in the simulator and make sure you taught yourself properly).

gloopy

GIGO though. Human error is still present in computers, software and AI. Plus this isn't just an issue of lack of processing power. Planes would need exponentially more automation capability and redundancy. Current AP/AT or robot hardware isn't even close to being capabile of autonomous flight even if the AI was there which its not.

The tech to simply fly A-B remotely/automatically is there; its been there for decades. But not to expected 121 safety standards. No one cares if a Predator augers in for whatever reason; they'll just buy a thousand more.