The United States has some of the oldest operating aircraft in the world. In today’s age, a large percentage of airline customers are concerned about the age of the aircraft they are flying on. But what many people forget is that while a plane may be old, its systems and mechanics may be fairly new. For example, a 30-year-old plane may have 5-year-old engines. In fact, it’s not the age of the aircraft that matters at all, it’s the consistency of maintenance. Flying is very safe today compared to the pre-autopilot age. Innovations in technology have made flying significantly easier for the pilot, who plays the most important role in the safety of those onboard. When something goes wrong during a flight and the plane manages to land safety, the pilots are the sole people to thank.
When it comes to safety, maybe customers shouldn’t worry about the age of the plane, but rather who – or what – is in control.
Passengers have been trusting pilots with their lives for decades.
Existing features such as autopilot have improved the safety of flight and have made it significantly easier for the pilots to navigate effectively. Now that complete automation is on the table, advocates claim that safety will be improved furthermore. However, is the “promise” of heightened safety enough to jeopardize the career of the pilot? What happens when there are strong crosswinds, perpendicular to the runway, making it difficult to land regularly? What happens should the computer in control malfunction? The odds of dying in a plane crash are one in eleven million. Comparatively, the odds of dying in a car accident are one in five thousand. Plane crashes are extremely rare and the guarantee that flight will be a little bit safer is not enough to justify putting thousands out of work.
When a company considers replacing a labor process with automation, they are risking the future livelihood of countless employees. For example, if a company like Boeing or Airbus installs systems into their aircraft that would allow them to be controlled from a computer on the ground, and then sells these aircraft to a major airline such as Delta, then the thousands of pilots that work for Delta would be rendered jobless. Then what? What work is there for someone who was trained to fly planes other than flying planes? They would have to learn a new skill entirely, and hope that they will be hired in the job-competitive society we currently live in.
There are many dangers associated with flying a plane. If humans were meant to fly, we would have been born with wings and feathers. An airplane is no more than a sophisticated machine prone to unexpected failures. Historically, there have been numerous incidents where planes have lost control. Many of them were tragic, but some were miraculous. One such incident was in 2009, when a US Airways Airbus A320 lost power in both engines, due to collisions with birds. In this famous incident, Captain Chesley Sullenberger was forced to make a split-second decision that resulted in him ditching the plane on New York City’s Hudson River, a decision that saved the lives of all 155 people onboard. Initially, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) launched an investigation to determine whether the plane could’ve been landed at Teterboro, a nearby airport in northern New Jersey. This of course would have been a better course of action, saving both the passengers and the multi-million-dollar aircraft. However, after numerous failed attempts to land at both Teterboro and LaGuardia in simulated scenarios, the NTSB concluded that Captain Sullenberger, better-known as “Sully,” made the right choice in what they referred to as the “most successful ditching in aviation history.” One of the most impressive aspects of this accident was the landing. One flight attendant described the river landing as a typical hard landing on a runway. The plane did not bounce or flip, it simply sat down in the river and slowly decelerated to a stop. This is all due to Captain Sullenberger’s experience as a pilot and his training in aircraft safety. In such an unusual event, it is frightening to imagine how the performance of an automated system would compare.
Removing humans from the cockpit has the potential to hinder business for an airline. There are many people who feel uncomfortable on planes and find some degree of relief in the pilot’s voice, whether they’re being reassured of the time that they will land, or that “it’s okay, we’re only experiencing mild turbulence and it will clear up shortly.” If there are no humans on board controlling the plane, there is a very strong possibility that passengers will not feel safe flying on it.
Despite the effectiveness of technology in the cockpit, complete automation is a step too far. There is no doubt in my mind that the primary reason airlines, some of the highest profit-grossing companies in the world, are seeking automation is so that they won’t have to lose as much profit to their pilots’ pay checks. There may be some uses for automation within the airline industry but replacing pilots entirely would be a leap in the wrong direction.
