Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers

JP (Likely) says

Autoland already exists. Commercial ops will be reduced to a single pilot with autoland already existing. The biggest barrier is emergency management.

Yes (Highly likely) says

Cars are becoming automated, sea craft becoming automated, so why not planes? At the end of the day planes sort of have an "autopilot" feature so it's only a matter of time before they're fully automated

MMS says

Will not be flying...AI cannot make good decision...Needs a human

sev (Likely) says

with drone technology pilots may not even need to fly.

Amin says

Illogical. Pilot can be offset with proper flight planning software, making its higher risk in being replaced with aircraft engineer or aircraft technician.

Boris (Small chance) says

There may still have pilots to control the plane if robots have some accidents.

looney townes says

People forget that the aviation is a heavy safety regulated industry. The technology is there but the cost benefit analysis is not. It is going to happen eventually but not in our lifetime, anybody who can read this. Single pilot airliners will start with cargo operations then proceed to airlines. If single pilot airliners are proven to be well trusted, then fully autonomous planes will be up next. This is going to take decades upon decades to even be invented, if ever.

Pavel (No chance) says

This occupation is reliant on skills that require being able to make very complex choices based on the context of the situation/problem. I don't see machines or AI developing the necessary skills on the near future.

Anonymous (No chance) says

Because even if bots could do everything, we still need humans in case something goes wrong

Mehmet (Highly likely) says

Pilot costs are second after fuel, it will help.

Abraham S T Mariam says

AI aircrafts will definitely take over real soon for 2 main reasons: Commercial Boeing have estimated to save over 40 Billion dollars by eliminating the commercial pilot his co pilot and flight engineer.

This is a business move and money is the reason for all things and all agendas. 2nd reason, autonomous software has a much better precision on working the system than the pilot or the flight engineer, back in the days the flight engineer would often make mistakes and push the wrong button and the plane crashes leaving everyone dead.

Autonomous software will never make a mistake. So many sensors will be built in on the air craft that can sense all things and nodes on the air craft will communicate with the cloud meaning the pilot can man the plane like a drone. Autonomous software will maintain the air craft 24/7 bu using algorithms, consequently eliminating any type of failure to occur.

Another thing, 5G technology is being implemented, we are in the early stages, give it about 5 years before we are living in a fully functional 5G world and you will start to see smart cars and smart homes, that being said smart planes will be more efficient in a world of 5G.

Vikrant (No chance) says

Less trust on machines in case of emergency

Dcv (Highly likely) says

It's clear no risk in modern combat for our soldier

Captain Fish (No chance) says

With safety concerns AI won’t be able to handle an emergency situation

liam (No chance) says

there are many human factors that go into conducting a flight, such as weather, runway status, traffic, diversion, emergency procedures and runway friction (ex. snow, ice, water,dust) and last minute variables that a computer would never be able to comprehend.

John says

I don't think airline pilots will get automated, because the cockpit is already highly automated. The pilots are mostly there to make sure everything is going smoothly and to respond to emergencies.

Sky King (Likely) says

There’s a huge push to do commercial airline/cargo operations with drones. I fly planes for a living and they can just about do everything themselves. They can land and fly by themselves. Haven’t seen a plane do a take off or engine failure but I believe these things can be accomplished with the same technology government MIC drones use now. If it saves airlines money they WILL do it.

Bob says

Many areas of the world still cannot get reliable HF communication. MH370 is the perfect example of GPS positioning is not available world wide.
Even if airliners become unmanned, they will still need to be piloted or managed on the ground.
Although aircraft can auto land, most are limited up to light winds (conditions that fog would be present) UAVs that don’t have these limitations are still piloted, just from a pilot on the ground.

Kevin says

Airliners are already extremely automated, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

Even the most advanced airliners today are designed and built to be flown by two pilots. It would be incredibly hard to fly say, a 737, by yourself... even if you were a qualified airline captain.

The technology is there (in theory) to build a pilot-less plane. But for it to be a money-making endeavor for airlines to consider, you'd have to jump the massive hurdle of public opinion. A lot of people are afraid of flying already, let alone going 38,000 feet in the air at the hands of a robot.

It's not exactly feasible nor is it a money-making idea at the moment.

A(soon to be) pilot (No chance) says

No chance! Yea robots might be better at flying than pilots (sometimes). But because of the way they are right now they can't calculate unnatural situations like: emergencies, failures, volcanic ash etc.

Thought experiment:
the AI is operating the plane normally but suddenly the AI gets notified that an engine is failing but the engine is not failing it's the system which checks if the engine is running is failing! What now? The AI will take steps which you would take if an engine failed but the engine didn't fail.

You see the problem? It is not as easy as it may seem to replace pilots.

Joodi Al Farsi (Could go either way) says

Can people trust a computer to take them 1000 feet above the ground? Technology has already advanced so much, so who knows?

Vince (No chance) says

Think about it. We've had the technology to automate trains and we haven't done so. Why in the world would you expect airliners full of passengers to be automated any time soon?

Fábio Ramos (Small chance) says

No chance