Flying Robots

• Flying: A modern passenger airliner is essentially a flying robot, with two humans to manage it. The autopilot can control the plane for each stage of the journey, including takeoff, normal flight, and even landing.^[44] Other flying robots are uninhabited, and are known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They can be smaller and lighter without a human pilot onboard, and fly into dangerous territory for military surveillance missions. Some can even fire on targets under command. UAVs are also being developed which can fire on targets automatically, without the need for a command from a human. However these robots are unlikely to see service in the foreseeable future because of the morality issues involved. Other flying robots include cruise missiles, the Entomopter, and the Epson micro helicopter robot. Robots such as the Air Penguin, Air Ray, and Air Jelly have lighter-than-air bodies, propelled by paddles, and guided by sonar.

end quote from wikipedia until the heading "robotics"
Though most of us think of jet airliners as pilot driven and not as robots, technically they are flying robots that are managed by pilots. The reason this is useful to say is that almost all jet airliners are now capable of being flown remotely(both takeoff and landing as well as cruising) even if all pilots and crew members are unconscious or dead. This allows for saving lives in unforeseen circumstances as well as not allowing a plane to crash because of unconsciousness of all on board.

Note: In order not to mislead anyone I'm not completely sure which airplanes or airlines do what. What I mean by this is that I'm not sure which planes can take off by themselves. I know all passenger planes almost without exception have an automatic pilot so after take off most of the time no one needs to be flying the plane just looking for other airliners and planes visibly and through radar and checking weather conditions. And I know that most planes now can be landed remotely under some circumstances. So the unsureness here is mostly in regard to which planes might be able to take off by themselves.

Personally, I don't think the ability to take off without assistance would be a good choice after 9-11 for obvious reasons.