[gordner]

As someone who works in aviation, I can tell you that the weakest link safety wise is usually the human behind the stick. In an ideal world in modern aviation, the pilot interraction on the flight deck is minimized as much as possible. The reality is that unmanned pax transportation is likely years and years away form a public confidence stand point, but that safety could be increased pretty quickly by removing the humans from the equation.

There are far more drones flying in public airspace than most people are aware, there are fully autonomous border patrols 24/7 on both your Northern and Southern borders. Thes are automated aircraft that make decisions themselves in the event of an airspace conflict, that interact with ATC just like manned flights do.