Pilotless airliners have long been the Engineers and airline management's favourite wet dream. It simply won't happen anytime soon at least as carrying pax is concerned. Cargo maybe. In fact pilotless cargo airliners do make sense as such and maybe after many years of faultless service. Pilotless passenger airliners, may, just maybe acceptable to farepaying passengers.
But I doubt it very much. As any pilot knows, in any given day there are dozens of decisions to be made as regards fuel, weather, payload, diversions, passenger issues like, illness, drunkeness etc.
In fact if you consider it, there would have to be someone on board to make decisions and alter the course of the flight if neccessary and deal with emergencies. One of the cabin crew perhaps, would have a little station and in between dishing out over priced coffee and scratch cards. (Mr O'Leary of course would be first in the queue for pilotless aircraft), where they could communicate with the ground or alter the course or destination of the aircraft. For this they would need a certain amount of extra training and even an appreciation of what flying an aircraft is all about. Naturally they would receive extra pay for this and their station could be at the front of the aircraft where the flight deck used to be. There might even be more than one trained person on each aircraft in case something happened. Perhaps the little station at the front of the aircraft might have a couple of small windows for the operators to see out just in case. Although operator is a pretty poor title for this job. I know, we could call them pilots. Yes, indeed pilots because that is what they are.
You can't get rid of the pilot from airliners. It won't happen. There always has to be someone on board to make decisions. That person will be a pilot. The aircraft may well be heavily automated and even semi autonomous but you will always need someone to monitor the systems and to make decisions when problems arise. The job may well be heavily diluted from what we know it now but it will always exist.