Skills it runs on
The capabilities O*NET rates most important for this occupation — the human ground the work is built on.
See all skills →Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors
Occupation · SOC 53-1041.00
Supervise and coordinate the activities of ground crew in the loading, unloading, securing, and staging of aircraft cargo or baggage. May determine the quantity and orientation of cargo and compute aircraft center of gravity. May accompany aircraft as member of flight crew and monitor and handle cargo in flight, and assist and brief passengers on safety and emergency procedures. Includes loadmasters.
Also called: Cargo Supervisor · Line Service Supervisor (LSS) · Loadmaster · Ramp Supervisor · Ground Operations Supervisor · Ramp and Cargo Supervisor · Air Cargo Ground Crew Supervisor · Air Cargo Ground Operations Supervisor · Air Cargo Specialist Supervisor · Air Cargo Supervisor · Aircraft Loadmaster · Airfreight Loading Supervisor
Job family: Transportation and Material Moving Occupations
Take this to your AI
A source-stamped Markdown brief of this occupation — paste it into an agent, or fetch
/roles/role-53-1041-00/context.md directly.
AI work map
A fast read on where AI already shows up in this occupation, where it stays a copilot, where humans remain in the loop, and what the labor market is doing. Built from observed Claude.ai conversations mapped to O*NET tasks and from published research — measures of usage and exposure, not advice or predictions that the job is going away.
Market signal
Independent published positions, read together — not a forecast.
- About average employment outlook (+5.2% by 2034)
- 1,100 openings/yr
- Low AI exposure
- Median pay $63,940/yr
31st-percentile task overlap — yet about 1,100 openings a year (+5.2% projected, BLS) . What exposure means →
AI & job outlook
What today's research says about this occupation's exposure to AI, how AI is actually being used in it, and where employment is headed. These are positions within published studies — measures of exposure and usage, not predictions that this job will disappear.
Exposure to current AI
Each study uses its own scale, so the raw scores are not comparable across rows — the percentile (this job's rank among all U.S. occupations with data) is the comparable figure, and sizes the bars.
| Measure | Rank vs all occupations | Percentile | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou) Moderate | 44th | 0.5 | |
| AI assistant applicability (Microsoft) Low | 22nd | 0.1 |
OpenAI's exposure study scores tasks three ways: with a language model alone (α 0.1), with simple added tooling (β 0.3), and including AI-powered software (γ 0.5). Higher means more of the job's tasks could be done at least twice as fast — not that they will be automated away.
Job outlook
Independent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment projection for 2024–2034 — a labor-market forecast, not an AI-impact forecast.
| Outlook | About average · +5.2% by 2034 |
| Projected annual openings | 1,100 |
| Employment 2024 → 2034 | 10,300 → 10,800 |
“Annual openings” counts new jobs plus replacements for workers who leave the occupation, so it can be large even when growth is modest.
Tasks
All 6 tasks O*NET lists for this occupation, ordered by importance. Each links to its own page with AI-exposure and observed-use detail.
- Calculate load weights for different aircraft compartments, using charts and computers. Supplemental · importance 4.8
- Determine the quantity and orientation of cargo, and compute an aircraft's center of gravity. Core · importance 4.6
- Direct ground crews in the loading, unloading, securing, or staging of aircraft cargo or baggage. Core · importance 4.5
- Train new employees in areas such as safety procedures or equipment operation. Core · importance 4.5
- Distribute cargo to maximize use of space. Core · importance 4.3
- Accompany aircraft as a member of the flight crew to monitor and handle cargo in flight. Supplemental · importance 4.1
Work activities
Knowledge, skills & abilities
O*NET importance rating, from 1 (not important) to 5 (extremely important).
Knowledge
Abilities
| Oral Comprehension | 4.0 | |
| Oral Expression | 4.0 | |
| Problem Sensitivity | 3.9 | |
| Deductive Reasoning | 3.6 | |
| Far Vision | 3.6 | |
| Selective Attention | 3.5 | |
| Multilimb Coordination | 3.5 | |
| Near Vision | 3.5 | |
| Perceptual Speed | 3.4 | |
| Speech Recognition | 3.4 | |
| Information Ordering | 3.3 | |
| Flexibility of Closure | 3.3 | |
| Visualization | 3.3 | |
| Time Sharing | 3.3 | |
| Static Strength | 3.3 | |
| Speech Clarity | 3.3 |
Essential skills
| Critical Thinking | 3.8 | |
| Active Listening | 3.6 | |
| Speaking | 3.6 | |
| Monitoring | 3.6 | |
| Learning Strategies | 3.5 | |
| Reading Comprehension | 3.3 |
Transferable skills
| Management of Personnel Resources | 3.8 | |
| Time Management | 3.6 | |
| Coordination | 3.5 | |
| Judgment and Decision Making | 3.4 | |
| Social Perceptiveness | 3.3 |
Skills in demand
Skills employers ask for in job postings for this occupation (Lightcast), with whether each is a common or specialized skill.
Tools & technology
| Example | Category | |
|---|---|---|
| Web page creation and editing software | Hot technology | |
| Microsoft Excel | Spreadsheet software | Hot technology |
| Microsoft Office software | Office suite software | Hot technology |
| Microsoft Outlook | Electronic mail software | Hot technology |
| Microsoft Word | Word processing software | Hot technology |
| Cargo tracking system software | Inventory management software | |
| Corel WordPerfect Office Suite | Office suite software | |
| Warehouse management system WMS | Materials requirements planning logistics and supply chain software |
Work context
How characteristic each condition is of the job, on O*NET's 1–5 context scale (higher = more present in day-to-day work). Each condition links to how it varies across all occupations.
How to get in
- Job zone
- Zone 2 — Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed
- Education
- Usually requires a high school diploma or GED, though some occupations may not.
- Typical entry-level education
- High school diploma or equivalent · BLS, the typical path — not a requirement
- Related experience
- Some occupations may need little or no previous experience; others require several months to a year of experience. For example, landscaping and groundskeeping workers might require very little training or previous experience, while agricultural equipment operators can benefit from on-the job training.
- Preparation level
- SVP (Below 6.0) — total schooling plus on-the-job experience.
Education of current workers
Share of people in this occupation at each level of education.
| High School Diploma | 64.1% | |
| Bachelor's Degree | 18.5% | |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 10.2% | |
| Some College Courses | 4.7% | |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 2.5% |
Interests & work styles
The interests and personal qualities O*NET associates with people who do this work.
Work styles
| Dependability | 7.0 | |
| Attention to Detail | 6.0 | |
| Integrity | 5.0 | |
| Cautiousness | 4.0 | |
| Self-Control | 3.0 | |
| Leadership Orientation | 2.4 |
Career interests (Holland / RIASEC)
| Enterprising | 5.4 | |
| Conventional | 4.8 | |
| Realistic | 4.6 | |
| Social | 2.5 |
Interest areas
| Management/Administration | 5.1 | |
| Transportation/Machine Operation | 4.2 | |
| Physical/Manual Labor | 3.1 | |
| Mathematics/Statistics | 2.5 | |
| Human Resources | 2.4 | |
| Engineering | 2.3 |
Wages & employment
U.S. · annual wages (BLS OEWS)
| 10th percentile | $38,010 |
| 25th percentile | $49,020 |
| Median (50th) | $63,940 |
| 75th percentile | $79,600 |
| 90th percentile | $96,300 |
| People employed | 10,160 |
Industries that employ this occupation
Where these workers are employed, by number of jobs (national, BLS OEWS). Pay shown is the occupation's national median, not industry-specific.
| Industry | Workers | National median pay |
|---|---|---|
| Transportation and Warehousing · Sector | 9,960 | $63,390 |
| Manufacturing · Sector | 50 | $128,450 |
Where this work is most concentrated
Industries where this occupation is far more common than in the economy as a whole. The location quotient is how many times more concentrated it is here (a value of 5 means five times its economy-wide share).
| Industry | Concentration | Workers |
|---|---|---|
| Transportation and Warehousing · Sector | 20.45× | 9,960 |
Related occupations
Part of the Supply Chain & Transportation career cluster.
- First-Line Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators · 53-1043.00 Compare →
- Airfield Operations Specialists · 53-2022.00 Compare →
- Transportation Inspectors · 53-6051.00 Compare →
- First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants · 53-1044.00 Compare →
- First-Line Supervisors of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand · 53-1042.00 Compare →
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers · 11-3071.00 Compare →
- Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance · 43-5032.00 Compare →
- Industrial Truck and Tractor Operators · 53-7051.00 Compare →
- Cargo and Freight Agents · 43-5011.00 Compare →
- First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers · 51-1011.00 Compare →
- Freight Forwarders · 43-5011.01 Compare →
- Commercial Pilots · 53-2012.00 Compare →
Side-by-side comparisons place two occupations’ pay, preparation, skills, and AI exposure on the same page — same data, same scale, no forecast.
What you can do with this
Options the data surfaces for Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors — not advice or a forecast. Each is a real cross-link you can follow into the evidence.
Skills that travel
Capabilities this work builds that are used across many other occupations.
Adjacent roles
Occupations O*NET rates as related — the nearby moves on the map.
Paths in
How people typically prepare for this work.
- High school diploma or equivalent · typical entry level
- Job zone 2 — Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed · preparation tier
Zoom out
See where this work sits in the bigger picture.
Write a report on thisheadline · factoids · citation
Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors show 31st-percentile AI task overlap — and about 1,100 annual U.S. openings
- Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors rank in the 31st percentile (Low band) for AI task overlap across U.S. occupations — a measure of how much of the work today's AI can attempt, not how much is automated.Eloundou et al. (GPTs are GPTs) + Felten AIOE
- The occupation is projected to see about 1,100 U.S. job openings per year (2024–34), counting growth and replacement — a labor-demand projection made independently of AI.BLS Employment Projections 2024–34
- BLS projects employment to be about average (+5.2%) from 2024 to 2034.BLS Employment Projections 2024–34
- Median annual pay is $63,940, across about 10,160 U.S. workers.BLS OEWS (May 2024)
Copy the whole kit
Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors show 31st-percentile AI task overlap — and about 1,100 annual U.S. openings • Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors rank in the 31st percentile (Low band) for AI task overlap across U.S. occupations — a measure of how much of the work today's AI can attempt, not how much is automated. (Eloundou et al. (GPTs are GPTs) + Felten AIOE) • The occupation is projected to see about 1,100 U.S. job openings per year (2024–34), counting growth and replacement — a labor-demand projection made independently of AI. (BLS Employment Projections 2024–34) • BLS projects employment to be about average (+5.2%) from 2024 to 2034. (BLS Employment Projections 2024–34) • Median annual pay is $63,940, across about 10,160 U.S. workers. (BLS OEWS (May 2024)) Source: Singulariki — "Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors". https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-1041-00 Note: AI task overlap measures what today's AI can attempt, not automation, job loss, or a forecast.
AssetsShare imageMethodology & sourcesPress & newsroomThe newsroom
Every line is built only from figures this page already shows and cites. AI task overlap means what today's AI can attempt — not automation, job loss, or a forecast.
Sources for this page
Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.
- O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai Microsoft Research
- “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic
Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.
Cite this page
Plain
Singulariki. "Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors." Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Built from O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-1041-00
APA
Singulariki. (2026). Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-1041-00
BibTeX
@misc{singulariki-role-53-1041-00,
title = {Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors},
author = {{Singulariki}},
year = {2026},
note = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
url = {https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-1041-00}
} Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.