Scoff as you will but this has been seriously investigated by Airbus for some time to overcome the obvious issues raised above of TCAS etc. Autopilot ranging is pretty straight forward technology. If they can measure sub millimetre distances between two satellites to infer gravitational anomalies in the earth's surface, keeping two aircraft 3000m apart aint hard.
The bigger commercial issues will be getting the aircraft to depart simultaneously to formate (and not wasting time loitering for the other aircraft to join) and sorting out who gets the credits in a multi company formate. As a leader do you get X nm of leading credits that you can spend in tow with another aircraft from any company...?
Clearly the savings are greater over longer routes. Two aircraft ex LHR to MEL and SYD could stay in formation for say 18 hours then split at the last 45 mins. Similarly in reverse to European destinations. 15% fuel savings are huge, equivalent to NEO engines once more. That's a lot of pax that equals $$$$.