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.

Comments

Re:Fleshy backup system

[xevioso]

Exactly. I'm well aware that most modern flight is highly automated. But knowing there's a human in the pilot's seat to take care of anything unforeseen is incredibly important.

Never goning to happen.

[gurps_npc]

But they WILL get rid of the co-pilot. Aircraft are all about the back up systems, and the human pilot is a good one. That's why they have the co-pilot now. They won't get rid of all people in the cockpit.

Instead they will have one pilot as an emergency back up, with the computer doing the flying 90% of the time.

Re:Lower the price and they will come

[KingOfBLASH]

If you got rid of the pilot and co pilot, you would barely see a blip in your ticket price.

Let's do the math.

2 pilots @ $200k each == $400k
Training etc for those pilots @ $200k each == $400k
1 trip per day assuming 3 weeks vacation a year: 5 * (52 - 3) == 245
Cost of pilot per trip: $800k / 245 == $3.27k

There are approximately 200 seats on a 737, so that's $3.27k / 200 == $16 per ticket potential savings

Now for an airline, that might make sense on a large scale because they'll reap millions a year in savings, but for consumers it's barely a blip on the radar.

These are with conservative estimates. The salary I took was the highest in the range on glassdoor, I'm assuming all their fancy simulator time doubles their salaries, and most pilots fly short haul flights so they rack up multiple flights a day. Wikipedia confirms the number of seats for a 737, but of course if you have a cabin of first class passengers there are less seats, but still it wouldn't matter.

Additionally, insurance companies will likely charge increased premiums for a pilotless craft, so at the end of day the savings will be considerably less.

The only time you would conceivably see a savings big enough to care would be with a transcontinental flight where you might have four or more pilots (because they sleep in shifts and rotate out). But, compared to the ticket price, I suspect the savings will be marginal.

I suspect there would also be additional overhead as pilots have other functions than flying. For instance, determining if a reroute is necessary or if a passenger is fit to fly.

Additional training and delegation of these duties would most likely raise the cost of other crew.

So, in the end, this is a non issue. Until AI auto pilot comes in a cheap as in uber quad copter that will taxi you where you want on demand, we won't see AI in the sky

References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://www.glassdoor.com/Sala...

Data is not there

[GumphMaster]

As someone that works in the area of providing data for air navigation I can unreservedly say that the data to support completely automated flight from off-blocks to on-blocks, is simply not there yet. Aviation is chock full or rules, exceptions, regulations, grey areas, short term changes, and unexpected events; all currently best dealt with using a Mk 1 Brain (two in most cases). Not to say it couldn't happen for a good chunk of regular passenger/freight transport between major, 1st world, domestic centres in the fullness of time. Aviation change moves on timescales of a decade or more, not months.

Ultimately though, it is naive in the extreme to think you are going to save billions by not hiring pilots. All that experience has to get into aircraft and ground systems to make this work. That will not be happening as a matter of charity. What you save in pilots you lose in equipment costs, airway navigation and landing charges.