link to article
Felt like it would be interesting to hear your opinions on this.
Victor,
It makes sense. Many FedEx feeders fly single pilot Caravans. If they could make that work with larger capacity aircraft there’s obviously some money to be saved. Further since there’s no passengers to complain that eliminates one of the greatest obstacles.
I do believe this will impact our industry in years to come but no time soon.
Adam
Victor,
Looks like I need a subscription to read the full article? I’m curious to know how this will affect the industry. I don’t think FedEx is introducing anything new. They already do this. And I wonder if this will be an addition to their operation and not a replacement.
Tory
My understanding is that they will be testing the technology for now and slowing phasing it in. My concern was how this would effect the feed of pilots from regionals to the legacy carries, if there were to be increased pilots from cargo carriers looking for a job.
Determining a timeline for something like this is completely impossible I just wanted to hear your thoughts on the matter. I hope current students will be able to fly for a long time before the impact gets too serious.
Victor,
I am not remotely worried about this. This sort of thing comes up from time to time, and yet nothing ever comes from it. The military has an incredibly high loss rate with their drones, far beyond that is acceptable for even cargo. Furthermore, railroads still use two crew members and will likely be doing so for some time. You might remember when a NJ Transit Engineer fell asleep in the cab and came into Hoboken Terminal at a high speed, resulting in the death of a passenger. Now NJT requires the conductor to be up front with the engineer when coming into end of the line stations. When the railroads can figure out single crews, I will start to worry about it at the airlines. Until then, I do not see this as an issue.
Chris
Absolutely good points, thanks for the information.