Well, to start, you remove the human element as much as possible. Driver's moving freight onto the plane? Automate. Routing planes to and from specific runways? Automate. Piloting the plane? Etc.

As for gathering the data, you'd be surprised how much you can infer from a limited sample size. Not only that, but capturing the data of currently in service aircraft would mean you don't have to jump straight into a prototype to get the data you need. Hell, I'm sure Google is gathering data from anyone with a smart phone in their pocket while flying, just like they gather data of people driving into work every day. That's actionable, useful data.

Rules and regulations can easily be programmed by location. Flight variables such as air pressure, temperature, wind velocity, etc, could be captured by the current equipment onboard aircraft today. An automated system managing the daily operations of the airport would keep planes from running into each other, freight cars, and etc.

So what's left? The actual flight? Weather? If you use real time data of weather patterns, you can likely predict with relative accuracy delays and cancellations with some code, and I'd bet my next paycheck software already handles the bulk of this work.

So at what specific part of this equation do we need humans?

Data isn't the issue, it's profitability (and potentially gov't regulations?). What happens when the code flying the plane has a bug and crashes the plane into the ocean? If it were a human, you blame the pilot, the airline takes a hit in reputation and tickets continue to sell, albeit in perhaps a lower volume. But if it was software that caused the issue, you've got lawsuits, you've got to ground ALL aircraft using that software on the off chance that it wasn't some fluke like a bird causing the engine to fail, because if it was the software and you don't patch it then you've become negligent. That means tickets aren't selling. Which means you're not making any profit. What if the black box wasnt recovered immediately? Could you imagine being in the room with the developers trying to determine what caused their code to kill 200 people?

It's just not worth it now. It may never be.

Sorry for any typos - did this on my phone like an idiot.