From CNN (CNN) — The concept of pilotless commercial jet flight has been bandied about for years.
But while the technology has been there, there's been little concrete evidence to suggest autonomous flying could ever really get off the ground -- until now.
Airbus has confirmed one of its test aircraft took off automatically at Toulouse-Blagnac airport in France last December.
The European aerospace company conducted a series of successful tests on autopilot last month, with two pilots on standby.
According to Airbus, the A350-1000 achieved eight automatic takeoffs over a period of four and a half hours.
"While completing alignment on the runway, waiting for clearance from air traffic control, we engaged the autopilot," Airbus test pilot Captain Yann Beaufils explained in a statement.
"We moved the throttle levers to the takeoff setting and we monitored the aircraft. It started to move and accelerate automatically maintaining the runway center line, at the exact rotation speed as entered in the system."

And we already have autoland and connects the autopilot soon after takeoff. It may not be tomorrow but it is coming.
The old joke, soon there will only be one pilot and a dog in the cockpit. The dog is there to bite the pilot if he touches anything.

And then there is this: Several general aviation aircraft already have a system that will declare an emergency, look for a suitable airport, select the radios, set the altimeter, shoot the appropriate approach and land the airplane should a pilot become incapacitated. And all the passenger has to do is to push the emergency button.
and Boeing is testing a pilot-less aircraft next year.

does it consider weather, notams, aircraft without transponders or even electrical systems flying at the same airport, etc when is picking this diversionary airport? will it avoid the thunderstorm on 5 mile final?

I’m ok with that. I was smart, never went into debt. Have two paid for houses one being my retirement house, plenty in the bank to retire off of, a pension thanks to my awesome company, and a military retirement. It would be an excuse to retire. But I’m not holding my breath. They will always need someone in the cockpit with a disconnect switch for a very very long time because computer AI and programming isn’t even 95% fool proof let alone 100%.

Just a matter of time. While not tomorrow, next year or in 10 or even 20 years to be fully autonomous - it’s definitely plausible to cut the crew down by one or more, half if you will. Long haul crew of 4 becomes 2 = 1 Monitors, 1 Rests. Granted international flying ain’t coming back anytime soon like it was before, but a 25% or more reduction of the pilot force is fairly significant and probably not that far off as one might believe. Plenty of single pilot operations on much smaller scales with no automation whatsoever have been going on for a long time.

The boeing's being built today are going to fly for at least 30 years.

RNP was invented in 1996 and everyone was supposed to be flying seamless approaches. It's now 2020 and everyone is still being vectored for a 20nm ILS.

Not worried.

Until they can pass over the problem that radio waves have a speed limit, there is no way that completely automated aircraft are taking off with passengers over high density, high traffic airports with all weather operations.

On the first manned missions to Mars as automated as they may be, there will be a pilot on board.

Adding "pilot-less planes" to my 2021 Things to Worry About list, per APC

Uh.... what? The first manned mission will have a pilot on board because you just said it’s the first manned mission. The idea being they actually want humans to be involved in the process of getting to another planet, prove we can do it and for them to experience being there along with all the other mission objectives. Exactly the opposite of fully automating commercial aviation which is trying to remove the humans.

I'm definitely not worried about that for too many reasons to count. Anyone in the industry now has absolutely nothing to worry about in their career. Having the technological capability to do something is very different from being able to apply that across the entire industry in a viable way with all the required changes to the corresponding infrastructure.

Wrong! designated pilot will be there for the same reason as to why a designated pilot will always be in a cockpit of an airliner. The "What if"