"What incentive is there for the country I live in to accept pilotless airliners flying over its cities and into its airports?"
Because by the time that pilotless aircraft are accepted for cargo and passengers, the failure rates will be well abve that of human pilots.
All the people saying NEVER! really are not very forward looking. We've gone from 5 or 6 on the flight deck down to 2. Modern aircraft do almost all of the actual 'flying' and full autoland has been around for 40 years already.
UAV's are building up see-and-avoid capability, and the sector is learning all the time about how to do things better, what causes the loss of drones and how to improve sensor / decision software.
Assuming the bugs are ironed out (and they will be givien time) then who wouldn't want to fly on an aircraft that does exactly what its told and doesn't get tired, or grumpy, or drunk, or try to impress the cabin crew?
People used to think travelling above 20mph would be lethal... and that the world was flat.
