For transportation systems to meet future environmental, productivity and safety requirements new technology is imperative. Technologies that involve automated and autonomous transport solutions are key drivers. Within the transport sector, sea, road and rail autonomous transport has already made entry. However, in research on autonomous transport systems, traditional aviation has become somewhat "forgotten". Focus is often to describe fully autonomous systems, while important transition phase(s) where more and more automated functions are introduced gain less attention. A lot of experience is inherent in aviation that can benefit future autonomous transport systems across domains especially considering the high safety level in aviation. Technological developments have reduced the accident rate substantially in aviation, however a new type of aviation accidents associated with loss of control is seen as a result of increasing degrees of automation. This paper presents a systematic literature review to identify safety experiences relating to aviation automation focusing particularly on human-automation interaction. The association between increasing degrees of automation and implications for safety is compounded - however, increased aviation safety is seen in connection with reduction of human error, increased decision support and simplified communications. Challenges associated with safety often concern issues of human automation-interaction seen in the Air France 447 and Boeing 737 MAX accidents where automation came into conflict with the pilots' actions. One can thus talk about a paradox associated with automation, a safety paradox informing us that more research is needed on the role of the human operator when automation increases, which can also support the actual design of future human-automation systems beyond aviation per se.