If I was a company looking to break into the automated passenger/cargo carrying drone business, I would focus on ferrying people and supplies to offshore drilling sites and remote mining locations. That way you are flying in uncontrolled airspace over water or unpopulated land. You can get more regulatory clearance that way and thus prove out your system, and those industries are much more likely to promise you a recurring service contract.

> they'll choose the cheapest flight over almost anything else

Almost anything else. I agree people will eventually get over their qualms; I just think this is a big qualm to get over.

Though what you've said about cheap helicopter flights has me thinking - perhaps the way in will be via the scaling up of quadcopters and drones. Once smaller drones are a familiar thing, larger passenger drones would be less of a stretch.

I'd argue it's easier psychologically to hop in a drone based on an ancestry that's never had an on-board pilot, than to hop in a plane that's had the pilot removed and replaced.

Would removing the pilot allow that magnitude of reduction?

I don't think that's true, about low priced tickets. What you actually mean is that once companies collude to create a situation where it's virtually impossible to compare one flight to another, or one airline to another, by any criteria other than cost then cost is what drives customer decisions.

I'm sick to death of this meme that Americans are only interested in low prices. The fact is airlines were one of the first of many industries to use fees, line by line cost breakdown, obscure deals and a baffling purchase process to strand customers on an island of price comparison and nothing else. See also: cell phones plans.

If you knew what you were getting and could hold airlines accountable when they didn't deliver on what was purchased I promise you price would no longer be the only factor. This is not a truism about Americans you've found, it's a truism about distorted and manipulated markets lacking sufficient regulation.

> airlines were one of the first of many industries to use fees, line by line cost breakdown, obscure deals and a baffling purchase process to strand customers on an island of price comparison and nothing else

I'm one of those Americans who doesn't buy the cheapest ticket. I buy comfortable seats at convenient times with airlines I'm loyal to. Guess what I see none of? Any of those things! My bags are free, my drinks are free, I get to go to the front of the check-in line and, many times, security line. On occasions where I've been charged a change fee, a quick phone call gets it reversed. I board a 6:30AM flight tomorrow and am honestly looking forward to a few hours of cool views, relaxing reading and maybe a touch of alcohol.

Airlines tried competing on pitch and leg room. Their behinds got handed to them by travellers switching to budget airlines. If you want better service, there are business class tickets available at prices cheaper than pre-deregulation fares.

Note that this effect isn't constrained to Americans. European non-business passengers' demand for air travel is also extremely elastic with respect to price [1].

[1] http://dare.ubvu.vu.nl/bitstream/handle/1871/48303/140307.pd...

What domestic airlines do you fly most? Do you regularly fly business?