BERLIN, May 27 (Xinhua) -- More than two thirds of Germans would not want to fly with an autonomously controlled aircraft, according to a survey published by the German digital association Bitkom on Monday.
Only 8 percent of more than 1,000 participants in the survey would board an aircraft which is controlled autonomously without a backup pilot. The number more than doubled to 17 percent, if a backup pilot was on board of the aircraft.
"While the autonomous car already achieves higher acceptance values, the idea of sitting in an unmanned airplane is still unimaginable or at least needs getting used to for most passengers," said Christopher Meinecke, head of Bitkom's research division for digital transformation.
Cited by nearly half of the proponents of autonomous flying, one of the biggest advantage of autonomously flying aircraft would be that problems caused by physical impairments of the pilots would be avoided.
In addition, three out of ten respondents considered that human failure, such as flight errors during landing or takeoff, would be out of the question if aircraft flew autonomously. Supporters of unmanned flight also pointed out that autonomous aircraft would not go on strike.
In mid-May, the German company Lilium revealed their all-electric flight taxi Lilium Jet. The company is currently planning to have the jet fly autonomously with five passengers in a few years. In order to achieve this, Lilium hired former head of German car maker Audi's autonomous driving division, Mirko Reuter.
Europe's largest airplane manufacturer Airbus is also participating in the race for autonomously flying aircrafts. The fully-electric CityAirbus called flight taxi, which was presented in March in the city of Ingolstadt, is set to transport up to four passengers autonomously on fixed routes between airports and key city destinations.
In the Bitkom study, 93 percent of the opponents of autonomous flying raised concerns that "no software" could replace the years of experience of a pilot. Nearly 9 in 10 people who do not want to fly with an unmanned aircraft also feared "cyber terrorism", such as a hack of the airplanes during the flight.
Technically, an autonomous flying aircraft would "already be feasible", said Bitkom expert Meinecke, adding that airplanes would already be flying with "autopilot" and that "the pilot then has the task of monitoring all processes".
