Unmanned commercial airliners?

I came across this recently.

Pilot handling skills under threat, says Airbus

Airbus is urging the aviation industry to confront the issue of how to ensure long-haul airline pilots maintain basic flying skills in the face of ever-increasing aircraft reliability and cockpit automation.

“We need to refocus on basic handling,” Capt Jacques Drappier, Airbus vice-president training, told the APATS training conference at the show yesterday during a presentation on the manufacturer’s training philosophy for its latest widebody programme, the A350 XWB.

“I think that at a certain point in time we need to bring back a little bit of handling,” said Drappier, adding that he advocates more simulator time for pilots to hone their basic skills. Meanwhile, he says, there are some elements of training that could be moved from the simulator to the classroom.

According to Drappier, long-haul pilots typically log 800-900 flying hours a year, although this could include “less than 3h of stick time”, the majority of which is accumulated on final approach and flare.

“We put people into our training today who have forgotten how to fly, basically,” he says. “This is an issue that needs to be addressed by the industry.”

I think you will always need pilots, because what happens if there is a problem and all there is passengers and cabin crew who don’t know how to fix the problem and bingo there is a disaster. I personally think it won’t happen. However i think pilots are there also for the comfort of the passengers.

Think of an operating system bug at 30000 ft, or during finals …