Some people are mentioning the light rail systems as being driverless. Fair enough but these are highly constrained systems and if all else fails they can apply the brakes and stop.
Any plans to go driverless on high speed trains? No? well I wonder why. Anyone want to be in a high speed train without a driver on board.
Back to aviation how about an automated airliner into that free for all known as JFK. Reckon the software can cope with a Canarsie with the ubiquitous tailwind. Ninety degrees off the runway and about 200 feet below profile. Over to you HAL!
Never say never I suppose. Of course some of you have mentioned freighters and it's not like they ever have technical problems like fires on board that would knock out the automation.
How about the cost of the datalink you'd need. Real time and in the middle of the ocean. After all, lose an engine and you need to react very quickly so what's the cost of satellite comms to facilitate that. It's not that I don't think that it's feasible to remotely fly an airliner but just that the resources involved would be MORE than that currently required by having a suitably trained crew. What the FAA and CAA have recognised is that the human is actually more important not less so hence the encouragement to hand fly where possible.