How safe will you feel when the plane you're riding on can be hijacked and crashed by someone on the ground?

This summer Tesla Motors is selling a model that holds the ability to be the first driver less car. All it needs is a software update to provide the capacity.

Modern regional airline pilots do not commonly have a broad experience base to draw upon. In the past it took thousands of hours of crop dusting, night cargo, and part 135 jobs before one reached an airline. In place of experience and ability pilots are checklist and flow chart driven procedure regurgitating automatons that are largely powered by rote memorization. In effect a heavily technology supported organic computer.

Commonly the weak link in the system is the organic matter that lies between the flight computer and controls. In a short time the public will become comfortable with self driving cars. The next thing to go will be the effective input of a pilot in air travel, replaced by artificial intelligence and ground control. Their purpose will be to serve as a last line of defense should all else fail. As with the cop who goes a career never having to draw his gun so the pilot could go their entire career never actually hand flying a plane.

In cruse they can put on an apron and help the cabin crew serve the passengers. It is only a matter of time.

Skyhigh

That was an insulting description, Sky. But I think flight students should consider the possibility that within their lifetimes the right seat role may be eliminated in commercial aviation, the same way flight engineers went away in the 70s. That will happen before crewless airplanes will happen, and they'll never make a human CA into a part-time flight attendant because they are significantly different work roles and it's a huge security risk to name a few. I doubt pilotless airplanes will happen in the passenger market during our lifetimes, or those of current flight students. It could take place in the cargo market a lot sooner though, and I forecast we will see large drones within the next 30 years. If and when that technology proves safe, passenger operations will gradually adopt it. 2060 at the earliest.

I don't think it will be crew-less but rather two people up front with minimal input to the outcome of the flight.

I am sorry if you found my depiction a bit harsh but how else should it be described? Airline pilots fly to the same airports at the same time over and over again. They are trained to follow the decision tree until you run off the map and then call dispatch for further instructions. Pilots are all trained to recognize a situation and then react the same in manner every time. The goal is to standardize everyone's vocabulary and actions to match the script from the office of the director of operations. A pilots hands may be on the controls but the company is flying the plane. The more standardized the better.

SKyhigh

Most jobs are pretty routine, and it's a subjective thing to measure. There's enough variety in flying to make it fresh every day. I would know, I've done many types of work and flying is one of the few things I can really thrive on. I spent the last year flying the same 4 legs over and over, same thing every day, and I was amazed how many different twists there were on the usual routine. Was it always career bliss? No. But no week was the same as all the others, and while some flights were pretty uneventful there was always some new twist. Things like picked up a half inch of ice, diverted due to storms, go-around for ATC, 60 knot tailwind, heard so-and-so on the radio, saw rainbows, witnessed another airplane have an emergency, thought maybe the engine in mine was rough, etc. The job has a fair amount of variety if your expectations are set right for it, and in fact I cannot imagine more variety in a job that stays in the US. Inner city police work or FBI, maybe? I know your standards are high for adventure in Alaska bush flying, but when you get old you do not want as much danger. I hear the trans-con flights get pretty dull. The guys who flew past Minneapolis would probably agree.

Do you fly professionally? I do and this doesnt ring true.
Ive got 22 years till retirement- I do believe that my last 4 or 5 years, ill have noone to talk to on my transcons.

Not so fast!!

Hackers Could Use Wi-Fi to Control Airplanes, GAO Warns : US : Headlines & Global News

Here's an anec dote. Radar outage at my destination, several of issued holds at the outer marker waiting for other planes to get down and the fog to lift, that goes on for an hour doing laps, several planes watching each other over a cloud deck. Fuel gets to divert bingo so I divert, half way there I hear the tower at the first field say weather is now up to mins, planes now getting in. Asked for and got a return vector, begin the ILS and tower says the winds just shifted to a strong tailwind. Decided to do a circle to land and barely able to see the airport to land going the other way with a minimal fuel reserve. How's that for the daily routine? This isn't every day, but I'd say it's every two weeks or so.

Simple answer, yes. Eventually... Just like everything else.

Maybe it is possible. Nowadays technologies grow in seconds. This may possible after 30-40 years.