Pilots, Flying and US Airways

I had the good fortune of sitting next to an operations manager on a recent flight; here's what I learned about US Air:

- US Air currently employs 3,000 pilots; this number seemed shockingly high to me, though the more I think about it the more I can get my head around it. And this number is down from 5,000 just a few years ago.

- Many pilots have other occupations; attorneys and doctors were the most common alternative jobs. Also surprising. Pilots schedules are pliable, same with attorneys (and I suppose with certain types of doctors as well), so I guess there was no reason to believe this couldn't occur. Pilots: More like NFL referees than you thought.

- It takes roughly a month to train the pilot of one aircraft to fly a different aircraft; think 737 moving to A320. I'd have thought this would be longer.

(The lesson, evidently, is that I knew far less about pilots than I had previously thought.)

- I entertained the possibility that, since the military can fly drones, airlines could be moving down the same path-- planes flown from remote locations. She doubted the possibility, but I think this could gain some traction in the future.

Since the technology exists, I don't believe incorporating it would be inordinately expensive. The larger issue would be who would be left to fly the plane from the remote location. Would we just shift pilots into these roles? If that's the case, the cost savings wouldn't be much, but if there's a more fully automated way to fly the planes then the bottom line impact could potentially be significant. She felt that someone would be needed on the plane in case of emergency; I can't think of a situation where having a pilot physically in the cockpit would be the difference between avoiding a disaster. (In the sense that if, say, the rudder fails, there is nothing that the pilot could do in the cockpit that a properly connected pilot in a remote location couldn't do.)

Which does bring up the issue of connectability. Losing remote connection could be catastrophic; I'm confident that advances in technology could mitigate this to a near zero probability.

In my mind, the largest hurdle would be the separation of the well-being of the pilot from the well-being of the passengers. If the pilot is on the plane with you, the incentives are nicely aligned-- there is much less need to worry about inordinately risky flying. Personally, I don't think this would be a large issue--but the mental security of it could be enough to make some passengers not want to fly.

Any thoughts?