Airbus SE is looking to develop autonomous aircraft and technologies that would allow a single pilot to operate commercial jetliners, helping cut costs for carriers, Airbus chief technology officer Paul Eremenko said yesterday.
“The more disruptive approach is to say: ‘Maybe we can reduce the crew needs for our future aircraft,’” Eremenko told Bloomberg Television’s Yvonne Man in an interview. “We’re pursuing single-pilot operation as a potential option and a lot of the technologies needed to make that happen has also put us on the path towards unpiloted operation.”
The aerospace industry has begun seeing a similar trend as the car market, where automakers are investing in or acquiring autonomous driving start-ups.
Manufacturers, including Airbus and Boeing Co, are racing to develop artificial intelligence that will one day enable computers to fly airplanes without human beings at the controls.
Airbus has a division called Urban Air Mobility that is exploring technology from on-demand helicopter rides to delivery drones.
Boeing last month said it purchased a company that is developing flying taxis for Uber Technologies Inc and also bought into a hybrid-electric airplane company.
Last week, Airbus agreed to set up an innovation center in Shenzhen, China.
The facility is to help accelerate research needed to chart the future of air travel, and China will provide Airbus an opportunity to design and develop such technologies, Eremenko said.
“I think the general aviation space in China is just opening up,” Eremenko said in Hong Kong. “There’s an opportunity for China to sort of take a leap ahead as it has been prone to do in other areas and design the aerospace system, design the regulatory regime to be future-looking, forward-looking to enable urban air mobility.”
The France-based firm is also exploring technologies that will bring more automation to the cockpit of airplanes that could help resolve a shortage of pilots in countries such as China, which is set to emerge as the world’s biggest aviation market in less than a decade.
Discussions are on with Chinese companies such as Baidu Inc (百度) to find ways to apply self-driving technologies to the aviation industry, Eremenko said.
Boeing has estimated that 637,000 pilots will be needed to fly commercial aircraft globally in the next two decades.
The industry needs to find ways to produce more cockpit crew, as only 200,000 pilots have been trained since the start of the aviation industry, Eremenko said.
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