[cyberax]

> Imagine it were 90% automated.

It already is.

> Now imagine there's a 3 hour outage of the automated system.

Planes divert to another airport, passengers grumble, end of story. Airport closures can and do happen all the time for all kinds of reasons, including weather or equipment malfunctions.

[cj]

Except when the system fails regionally.

[cyberax]

Then all the takeoffs will be cancelled, immediately reducing the workload, and planes will be manually landed.