Eventually as in 3 years? I don't think so, eventually, as in don't tell your grandkids to be pilots - yeah, maybe. Not in our lifetime will Fedex be using drones. Would you turn down a job at UPS due to the risk of drone flying?

 

Would you be fine with more pay cuts, outsourcing, and cheap fares to get those people off the highways? Management negotiators haven't tried that argument ... yet.

 

Drones may never materialize at UPS or FredEx but both companies are convinced they can do just as well with less assets and people. I don't care if you have 10 bodies, I want you to take that hill! that's an order!

 

Yeah, I did public service in the military for long enough. I'm not interested in flying airplanes for free just so people who are too cheap to pay what it's worth don't have to drive

 

Good. If driving is that unsafe, there will thereafter be a corresponding increase in demand for flying. People will value the safety of flying and be willing to pay more for it.

 

Actually it's much further off then you think. The technical, bureaucratic, infrastructure, economic, societal, and diplomatic hurdles are overwhelming at this point.

Could it be done today? Yes. But the cost would be astronomical, and it's very likely that no amount of money could produce RELIABILITY and SAFETY in the same operation, at least not to the level of today's manned operations. Automation works fine when everything goes according to plan, but how often does that happen?

One function of pilots is adult supervision...of the rampers, fuelers, dispatchers, flight attendants, gate agents, Mx, etc. Somebody is still going to have to do all that stuff, and that person may as well be on board the aircraft.


Anyone with a good grasp of engineering and how organizations work is not worried about unmanned airliners in our working lifetime.

Because a single pilot can become incapacitated, a single-pilot airliner would need to be fully automated anyway, so there's no economic benefit to that. If you're going to spend the money, it may as well be unmanned. The first unmanned airliners will of course have a pilot station for safety purposes until they are operationally proven.

The cost equation is not a function of aircraft size, it's a function of automation cost vs. pilot cost. Automation cost includes unintended consequences like more crashes (higher insurance), lost revenue due to scared pax, and operational losses due to lack of flexibility and reliability.

The most likely economic benefit to airlines associated with unmanned aircraft is fear...uninformed and not technically literate pilots who will compromise on their compensation because they're afraid they'll be undercut by the automation bogeyman.

If I were an airline manager facing contract negotiations, I'd try to talk Boeing into announcing an unmanned airliner exploratory project. Even though they would know full well that it will take 100 years, just the announcement will pay dividends.

 

Or, and this is just far-off speculation, BNSF begins competing with Amtrak by offering passengers another option. Doubtful, I admit, but fun to think about.

 

Exactly. Economics classes were always my favorites in college. The endless hypotheticals were thought provoking.

 

Well Rick, I generally respect what you say here but you may have lost me here. As a 26 year A&P and one who worked a gate at SFO for 15 years for legacy UAL I'm gonna have to disagree with you here. NO PILOT, in any way shape or form is, was or have ever been my "adult supervision". That is a ton of nerve and even more disrespect for the men and woman who provide to you everyday a safe, airworthy aircraft. Honestly.... Come on down off that horse man.....

 

As far as Mx and ramp...

Adult supervision as in the final quality and reality check. Nothing like knowing you'll be the first person to arrive at the scene of the accident to make you think twice and double check.

Everybody, obviously including pilots, makes mistakes...pilots just often happen to be the last guys who have the opportunity to notice something amiss before they push the "Go Fly" button.

So no disrespect intended, but as PIC I'm not just another cog in the machine, I'm the ultimate decision maker with ultimate responsibility. I do have to trust Mx and ramp for many things which I can't directly observe, but I'll always ask the question if I suspect anything is amiss.



As to gate agents...

Sorry man, but now that you mention it, yeah I really do have to inject adult supervision all the time.

They send me drunk/drugged pax and hope the FA will just "deal with it".

They send me "service animals" who aren't potty trained.

They tell me to close with ten empty seats and non-revs waving frantically in the terminal window.

They board people for SAT who are actually booked to STR...yeah that STR.

Don't know what to tell you there, but I'm reasonably sure that YOU back in the day were better than the common denominator we have now. In many cases management doesn't help with their unrealistic workload and on-time expectations.