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Pilotless Planes Could Save Airlines $35 Billion Per Year, But Passengers Aren't Willing To Fly In Them Yet (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report from Fortune: Autopilot is hardly a rarity in the world of commercial air travel. But when it comes to a fully automated flight, most people say "hard pass," at least for now. The pilotless plane could save airlines as much as $35 billion per year, according to a new survey from UBS, reducing the cost of highly skilled employees ($31 billion), related training ($3 billion), and fuel ($1 billion). The deployment of autonomous technology could result in significant fare cuts, an estimated one-tenth of the total in the U.S. And yet 54% of passengers refuse to board a remote-controlled plane, according to the survey of 8,000 air passengers. That sentiment will change over time, the investment bank notes. By the middle of the century, the majority may be willing. But UBS said passengers won't do it today, even if ticket prices were lower -- a big hurdle to airlines, which the bank estimates could see profits double by using the technology. Much like the automotive industry, most passengers don't realize that there are quite a few autonomous systems already in place on today's aircraft -- including those that land the plane.
Technology can and does fail, due to bugs or intrusion. I want a human as a backup. Backup systems are usually a good thing, especially when you are thousands of feet high.
Table-ized A.I.
The cost of one crash where they were judged negligent could bankrupt just about any airline, so there is more to this than the cost of salaries.
This is the point. Why should it mean increased profit for airlines rather than lower prices for passengers?
I'd have thought the first step would be to relieve the need for a copilot?
Qantas Flight 32.
Autopilot is great when everything goes smoothly. But the moment things go pear shaped, it's not so good. Qantas actually ran the incident in their simulators after the event; pretty much everybody who tried to complete it ended up with a hull loss (aka: the plane crashed.) It was pure luck that they had one of their most experienced flight crew on board, who managed to land the craft with no loss of life.
That's the reason why I'm not comfortable with fully automated (no human pilot on board) flights. Yes, flights these days are mostly automated. But the pilots are trained to the Nth degree to handle matters when things go wrong, and that's why they're paid the big bucks. It's not like trains or automobiles, where if something goes wrong, you can just pull over and get out of the vehicle, after all...
When a plane can land on the Hudson River without a pilot and without a loss of life, I'll be the first to buy a ticket.
Automation in the cockpit is great, except when something happens that wasn't expected, then, not having a pilot who has experience and skill is a death sentence. In fact, some would argue that we have already automated too much of the work pilots are doing, leaving them with few chances to actually practice their flying skills, increasing the danger should something unexpected actually happen.
How many times will we blithely assume that we can just automate complex tasks like flying passengers around? In the grand scheme of things labor costs of pilots is literally a drop in the bucket compared to fuel, logistics and maintenance. Are we going to do away with the cabin crew and their salary costs too? I mean they are only there to pass out peanuts and drinks (or the odd overpriced meal) to passengers. Why are THEY there? Oh wait, you say they have a safety component to their job? You don't say, and Pilots don't?
Personally, give me two happy pilots, well paid, well rested and well practiced who have actual flying skills sitting up front. I feel safer having to people who are likely going to be the first to die if we crash. I suspect they will put their best effort into saving us, given the situation.
Like my father, who worked for United Airlines for more than three decades said... "Pilots don't get paid for what they do, they get paid for what they can do when necessary." Stop trying to be cheap and pay up...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
This could probably easily be done for FedEx, UPS, USPS, etc. Also, check your bags and they get put onto an auto-cargo jet while you get on a luxury cruiser with a pilot who parties with you. I'm into the future if this it.
Then 54% are ignorant about the operations of a modern commercial airliner.
The onboard computer systems already control the mechanical operation of the flaps, the rudder, ailerons, the stabalizers, the landing gear, the ventilation, hell, pretty much everything. A pilot's primary responsibility is managing and executing the decision-making. Yes, they can take manual control, but why, when the computer is much faster, more accurate, and more efficient? Just watch this video and hear a commercial pilot talk about how autopilot alone works. All the pilot does is input all the data into the autopilot, setting the course heading, the speed, and the altitude, and autopilot does the rest.
Pilot operations of commercial aircraft are very procedural, and it can very easily be converted into an algorithm managed by a computer. At the very least, it would not surprise me if, in the next 20 years, the FAA determines it's safe for computer automation to reduce the number of required pilots in an airplane from two to one.
Lower the prices, then slowly raise them back up again while dropping the option for tickets on human piloted planes.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Operate robotic cargo flights for a few years and a couple million takeoffs and landings, and there will be a quantifiable record of their performance in all sorts of conditions.
Pretty hard to argue with going robotic once the record shows computers consistently outperforming human pilots.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
And that's what I think people don't yet grasp with automating passenger-carrying aircraft. How many times has a circuit breaker popped and you couldn't reset a system? I've flown autopilots that were so sensitive that just the suggestion of turbulence was enough for them to transfer control to the human. Others could fly through Class 5 whitewater. Systems fail. Regularly. Systems fail in ways not predicted by manufacturers. I'd love to know if a computer could have landed a DC-10 in Sioux City, IA without knowing (or expecting) the failure that occurred in that accident. What does a computer do when there's a complete hydraulic failure in an aircraft that "will never have a complete hydraulic failure"? The big question is, how do you program a computer to handle a nearly infinite number of contingencies? I know AI will be the answer, but even AI must learn. If it hasn't seen a problem before, do you want it learning something new with 300 meat missiles in the back?
ATC and the tower will be automated too.
We got rid of lighthouse keepers long ago, if there had been an internet back then I'm sure we would have heard plenty of people telling how it would be a terrible idea to replace humans with automated lighthouses.
We humans like to think we are really exceptional thinkers who couldn't possibly be replaced by a machine. We're mostly wrong. Heck, even human trolls were mostly replaced by bots during the last election.