Certainly there isn't outrage publicly at 200 hour pilots in the cockpits now...and I am sure that if the ticket prices were low enough, you could probably pack passengers onto a pilot-less plane, given some reasonable assurances of safety.
Don't get me started on the limitations and evils of the unmanned platform. It's something I can't and won't discuss here, for reasons I can't and won't discuss here, beyond saying that for the myriad advantages such platforms offer (presently primarily military in nature), the limitations and drawbacks are nearly overwhelming. That such programs exist presently is largely a function of politics and strings being pulled, not operational necessity or superiority. With that verbose non-statement, let me sum it up further by stating for the record that the platforms in use today, for all their expense and publicity, are NOT what they're cracked up to be.
I've never had so many near mid-airs as I have when operating in close concert with unmanned platforms. That's all I'll say on that subject.
You're probably right; a percentage of the public is more concerned about the bottom line than anything else, and may very well fly regardless of whether a living, breathing pilot is in the seat, or an inflatable "Otto" (like in the movie).
Before the industry deteriorates to that level (a quantum change from the current situation; one can't draw a linear path from here to there and attempt to show it as the inevitable conclusion, or even an extension of current events), the public will become informed. While those who might push the agenda of a pilotless platform would have every reason in the world to sell the public on safety, pilot unions, interest groups, lobbyists, and a host of others would pile in with a campaign to inform the public. Nobody is going there blindly. It's one thing to sell an arms committee on a ridiculously-expensive platform that's ridiculously undercapable; it's another entirely to sell the world population down the river in an unmanned transport.
Ultimately, a particular design platform is purchased by an airline because of it's economical viability. While the so-called "beancounters" might see some measure of savings to be had in a "pilotless" platform, such savings are minor compared to any issues which might develop.
Several days ago I experienced a TCAS Resolution Advisory while departing a busy terminal area. I was where I was supposed to be, at the altitude assigned. Another aircraft descended into us. The TCAS advised a descent, which was performed, and we returned to our altitude as soon as the event was clear. We advised ATC. We also advised ATC at that time that we were returning, and that we had seen the other aircraft. Automation could be made to execute the avoidance maneuver in concert to a TCAS alert or resolution advisory, but it wouldn't have provided a report of "traffic in sight" or information on the other aircraft. Human intervention, in concert with advanced, capable cockpit avionics, provided the information we used to operate safely.
Today we do use a lot of equipment in the cockpit which surpasses by orders of magnitude the computing capability of the last moon shot. We use equipment which is capable of incredible accuracy, of precision, of safety. Often pilots are directed to use autopilots because the autopilots can give better rides than we can, and they can do it more precisely with less bracketing, less oscillation, easier transitions, fewer (if any) overshoots, and so forth. This capability sometimes gives rise to the fanciful notion that if the autopilot does so well, we should allow the autopilot to do all the work. Again, it's extended logic that sounds good on paper, but falls flat in practice, and we (in the cockpit) all know why.
We're not hired for our ability to be physically present. We're not hired because we're switch throwers or manipulators of controls. We're not hired for the monkey-skills of flying an airplane. We're all expected to have those basic capabilities, but we're hired to think. We're hired for judgment. We're hired because the buck stops with us; when the spring comes unwound, when the sky actually begins to fall, when the normal no longer ceases to be the norm, there's us. It's what we do. In the end, when automation ceases, when the FMS goes blank, when the reservoir goes dry, and when the fire quits, what stands between angels and the passengers is the pilot, and it's the pilot who acts on behalf of the angels.
We all know that autopilots don't fly airplanes. We know that pilots fly airplanes through autopilots. We all know that when ATC tells us "turn right heading two seven zero, for traffic," we're the ones who make the change, but we're the ones who say "unable right due weather, suggest..." and then act based on our own judgment. Sure, a computer might be able to command that right turn into weather, and it might be programmable for algorithms that view a storm gradient mathematically, but in the end the computer can't judge. We can. We're not quiet about that fact, either.
There's no logical progression here to elimination of the first officer/copilot. There's no logical progression here to elimination of the crew entirely in favor of a fully automated cockpit. The automation we do enjoy is a tool through which we work, and nothing more. This is no secret among crews, though perhaps news to the public. To promote an agenda of crying the sky is falling and that airmanship is on a steady decline and death spiral on the tip of an agenda propagated by airline "beancounters" is to incite false excitement among the gullible. Not to reveal the truth.
Everyone has to start somewhere. Nobody is magically experienced in the cockpit. Traditionally, first officers and copilots are the least experienced complement of the cockpit. This isn't true of all equipment, of course; some equipment, some seats, are senior in the business and aren't filled with neophytes. Many, however, are. At what point does one draw the line? The new pilot in the Beech 1900? The new pilot in the B737? Is that any different than a new pilot in a B757?
We look to the training provided each pilot. I have sat at the end of the runway with a new pilot as he whistled under his breath, looking out at a picture-perfect low ceiling on departure, and heard him say "Wow, this is just like the sim," and I've shaken my head and chuckled. I've looked back across my career and seen three ways I've grown and learned, none of which should be removed or supplanted. I've been mentored, taught by those with far more experience and wisdom. I've been instructed and trained in classrooms and in flight and in simulators. I've been in situations that taught great lessons (as the character Steve McGarrett from the TV show 'Hawaii Five-O' once remarked, "We don't make mistakes here; we just learn great lessons). Experience. We all have to get it somewhere.
The military pilot is placed in a very expensive, very advanced cockpit after very few hours, all of it training, and shot off the deck of a carrier into the night to fight a war in a high performance turbojet aircraft loaded to gross with fuel, weapons, and complex equipment. This same pilot flies formation, handflies approaches to minimums where no approaches exist in the middle of the ocean, flies down canyons in the dark, and operates precisely enough to shoot down other aircraft. Nobody decries that pilot; he's lauded and celebrated, and we can look back over many of the heroic and acclaimed military aviators to find they made their mark as an inexperienced, low time neophyte. How could they do it?
Training and judgment. The various militaries can place a 250 hour pilot in the most advanced cockpits in the world and send some of them to do some of the toughest jobs in the world, yet we're hearing people here whine and complain that an airline can't put a low-time pilot in a seat and have him or her fly a middle-of-the-road one-way point-to-point fly-by-the-numbers airline trip, deep inside the safety of the pre-predicted (and guaranteed) performance envelope?
How do we explain the outstanding professionalism and safety record of the airlines currnently using cadet programs? Contrary to what some initio isn't a suggest, ab initio isn't a cheap way to bring pilots on board, and it's not an easy way to an airline seat for applicants, either. Don't get me wrong; I scrimped and scraped to get where I was going. It was a very difficult path. To watch a 250 or 300 hour pilot bouncing into place isn't an easy thing to swallow, for me, or for other posters here (especially those who quit their position or couldn't get hired somewhere). One can develop a case of sour grapes, cry the sky is falling and whine to high heaven or one can recognize that these things aren't new, airmanship isn't dead, and that this is the world in which we live (deal with it), and move on with life.
Personally, I elect to move on. The sky really isn't falling. Airmanship really isn't dead, and we aren't under attack by a secret order of "beancounters." Inexperienced pilots in the cockpit aren't new, whether it's the upgrading second officer/FE, or the minority programs run by flag operators such as United Airlines (a 500 hour ethnic or female applicant hired over a 5,000 hour anglo male, for example), or the hiring that's been taking place over the last 60 years of low time pilots into airline seats; this isn't a new thing. It's not a new development. This isn't the end. There's no great conspiracy. It's another day in an evolving industry that runs in ups and downs, cycles, and lives upon the one constant we all know and understand: change.