P. Duniho wrote:

This is the same reason that autopilot cars are a good idea, no matter how
offensive they may seem to some people. Yes, there will be failures of the
equipment. But that will happen MUCH less often than the failures of the
humans, and will improve the reliability and efficiency of our
transportation infrastructure at the same time.

Agreed. But the idea has been around for a long time without much
progress being made to implement it. I remember the GM pavilion at the
NY World's Fair in '64 where the diaramas showed the cities of the
future with computer-controlled cars all running smoothly along the
freeways. At that time I would have considered it a virtual certainty
that we'd have auto-piloted cars by 2000 if not much sooner. There
were demonstration projects in the '60s and there are still such
projects and research studies being done today, but I don't see much
evidence that they're much closer to reality now than they were back
then.

So even if all technical hurdles of pilotless airliners can be solved I
don't expect to see them in operation by 2030 or for a long time beyond
that.