Just think about it for a moment …
The certification process – how long would it take for a pilotless passenger aircraft to be certified? How much would the process cost? Who would pay for it? Boeing? Airbus? What would be in it for them? Which certification agency would have the balls to say ‘we guarantee this will be 100% safe’?
Because at the end of the day, who would buy it? Seriously – who would be the first airline to operate pilotless? What incentives would they have to offer to get anyone on board? €9.99 tickets? Ryanair do that already. Regular airlines would match the pilotless fares and NoCrew Airlines would be out of business quicker than Varsity Express.
Or if they did stay airborne, the very first accident and that would be that – project cancelled, 25 years of development and billions of development dosh wasted.
Oh – and by the way, they wouldn’t be pilotless. The pilot would be sitting on the ground, in front of an instrument panel with flight controls at his disposal. Just as highly paid, just as expensively trained, all you would save are the hotel bills and the overseas allowances.