Ryanair: Costs could be reduced by flying without Co-Pilot

[cathay belgium]

TCAS,

Oh please !!!

Just wanted to start a discussion here because FR-CX(remember third pilot on long haul few months ago!)-KL
is thinking of these steps in the future..

It's (surely NOT) my toughts here, I'm NOT encouraging it and I hope it will never happen,
but if airliners are thinking of it this way I pointed it maybe a little hard but thats probably
what some of them are thinking about it..

I know it's a risky issue on this forum , I'm not encouraging these changes but maybe we can just discuss
it'

CX-B

[regi]

Good for Hollywood. I am waiting for the next movie of a Ryanair flight where a flight attendant with a heavy Lithouanian accent asks if there is a pilot on board. Immediatley 249 fingers in the air ( the amount that will loaded in the next generation Ryanair planes ) , all computer nerds who reached the last level of a flight simulator game.
One passenger doesn't respond: the new age rastafari heading to Bruges. Groovy.

[andorra-airport]

The one obvious thing to do is to abandon crews at all and fly the planes fully automatic. Surely 21st century technology is capable of that?

Don't let MOL see this video, or it will be the future!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm8vFMn7V5s


(and here a nice landing of a Brussels Airlines, for those who are interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr8n3v5YpNw)

[Propwash]

Cockrow less...

DATE: 18/12/06
SOURCE: Flight International
European Commission's IFATS team unveils unmanned vision of air transport (Flightglobal)

[SmilingBoy]

Okay, but on-topic again : why can trains/busses do the job without a 'dog' and aircraft 'not'.
Risks are the same and lives are in both cases on risk.
The dog in trains is called a dead-man button, we accept this without thinking!
Technology of a dead man button in planes already exist with auto-landing,GPS,etc...
Or is aviation that 'posh' ?

Not sure your question is serious (I hope not), but isn't it pretty obvious? If a train driver gets incapacitated, the automatic comes in and slams the brakes until the train has stopped. There is not a lot that can go wrong here. Now imagin a pilot (flying on his own) becoming incapacitated. You would now need a highly sophisticated computer to fly that plane back to safety. Sure, computers can land a plane in many circumstances, under the supervision of the pilot, and with one of the pilots taking care of communication, navigation and planning. But what if the pilot is incapacitated during take-off? I don't think there are systems in place that could deal with this currently.

Maybe in the distant future, we won't need pilots anymore. But this is a long time away. First, trains will be automatic (already happening for a handful of light railways; could probably be implemented now for rail in general but is probably too expensive). Then cars and trucks will drive automatically (very early prototypes exist, but they are far from being able to drive a car in all circumstances). And only after that will the much more complex planes be flying without pilots. I'd say that this will take at least another 50 years until this becomes commonplace.

[galaxy]

I am waiting for the next movie of a Ryanair flight where a flight attendant with a heavy Lithouanian accent asks if there is a pilot on board.

Yeah..........

[Stij]

In a distant future on Ryanair:

(To be read with a satnav voice)

Hello and welcome on board this 737-800, this is the auto-pilot speaking. This plane is equiped with the auto-pilot RX2350.2. It flies without human pilots. But do not worry, nothing can go wrong... wrong... wrong... wrong...wrong...

Cheers,

Stij

[Stij]

And here's one they'll copy for sure:

http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?ID=34341

Only in Dutch, sorry. The point is: Spirit makes you pay for your hand luggage...

Cheers,

Stij

[andorra-airport]

Thanx Stij!

I found this one in English: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36193399/ns ... ?GT1=43001

45$ for hand lugguage hahahahaha! What a world we live in.

The second line is a bit scary though.... " Bigger airlines watching low-cost carrier’s move to see if customers will pay.......... "

And then this one:

"The problem with charging for checked luggage is that passengers lug as much onto the plane as they can (.......) Ever since checked bag fees began, "the boarding process has become more chaotic, there's more tension among travelers fighting for space in the overhead bin," she said. "It also becomes less efficient to board and deplane, which is not good for airlines that make money on being efficient."

(eh.....hello??????? , you caused this, so here is the result !........)

And yes me too, I expect this soon in the "weekly" Ryanair news......