Often handed to AI
Task areas most often handled directively in observed AI conversations — candidates to delegate with light review.
- Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. · 1.4%
Airfield Operations Specialists
Occupation · SOC 53-2022.00
Ensure the safe takeoff and landing of commercial and military aircraft. Duties include coordination between air-traffic control and maintenance personnel, dispatching, using airfield landing and navigational aids, implementing airfield safety procedures, monitoring and maintaining flight records, and applying knowledge of weather information.
Also called: Airport Operations Agent · Airport Operations Coordinator · Airport Operations Officer · Airport Operations Specialist · Airfield Operations Specialist · Flight Follower · Operations Agent · Operations Coordinator · Operations Officer · Operations Specialist · Airfield Services Officer · Airline Agent
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-53-2022-00/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.
Use as a copilot
Task areas where people work with AI — iterating, learning, or checking — staying in the loop rather than handing the task off.
- Procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, and weather information. · 0.6%
Keep a human in the loop
Task areas where a human was still judged necessary in a large share of observed conversations — not a safety ruling, an observed-need signal.
- Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. · 100.0% need a human
- Procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, and weather information. · 98.2% need a human
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 →Market signal
Independent published positions, read together — not a forecast.
- About average employment outlook (+4.2% by 2034)
- 1,600 openings/yr
- Moderate AI exposure
- Observed AI use leans automation
- Median pay $56,750/yr
- Work is mostly on-site (not teleworkable)
- Both the 2013 computerization estimate and today's AI exposure rank this high
58th-percentile task overlap — yet about 1,600 openings a year (+4.2% projected, BLS), and observed AI use leans 2821% copilot, not hand-off (AEI) . 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall AI exposure (Felten et al.) Moderate | 59th | 0.5 | |
| LLM task exposure, γ (OpenAI / Eloundou) Moderate | 52nd | 0.6 | |
| AI assistant applicability (Microsoft) Moderate | 65th | 0.2 |
OpenAI's exposure study scores tasks three ways: with a language model alone (α 0.1), with simple added tooling (β 0.4), and including AI-powered software (γ 0.6). Higher means more of the job's tasks could be done at least twice as fast — not that they will be automated away.
This job mostly cannot be done remotely (Dingel–Neiman) — its hands-on tasks sit outside what software-based AI reaches.
Historical automation estimate (2013)
A pre-LLM (2013) estimate of how automatable this job is by computerization and robotics. Shown for historical context only — it is not part of any current AI ranking.
Frey–Osborne probability 0.7 · 58th percentile among occupations · Moderate
How AI is actually used in this job
Among measured AI assistant conversations mapped to this occupation (Anthropic Economic Index, 2026-01-15), these task types came up most. These are shares of observed AI conversations — not shares of the job, of worker time, or of what could be automated.
| Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. | 0.4% | |
| Train operations staff. | 0.2% |
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 · +4.2% by 2034 |
| Projected annual openings | 1,600 |
| Employment 2024 → 2034 | 16,900 → 17,600 |
“Annual openings” counts new jobs plus replacements for workers who leave the occupation, so it can be large even when growth is modest.
Where this work sits on the global GenAI gradient
The ILO's 2025 global study scores generative-AI exposure on the international ISCO-08 occupation system, not US SOC. Bridged through the published (and approximate, many-to-many) IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 crosswalk, this US occupation corresponds to the international 5 occupations below. Exposure here means how much of the work's tasks today's AI can attempt — task overlap, not automation, adoption, or jobs lost.
Airfield Operations Specialists sits at the 56th percentile of 427
occupations on the global GenAI task-exposure gradient
. Each dot is one occupation; the
ringed one is this work. Exposure is task overlap, not automation or jobs lost.
30% mean task exposure (2025)
56th percentile of 427 placed occupations
−0 pts shift 2023 → 2025
| International occupation (ISCO-08) | Task exposure (2025) | Most tasks fall in |
|---|---|---|
| Air Traffic Safety Electronics Technicians · 3155 | 34% | Minimal |
| Air Traffic Controllers · 3154 | 31% | Minimal |
| Ships' Deck Officers and Pilots · 3152 | 29% | Not exposed |
| Aircraft Pilots and Related Associate Professionals · 3153 | 27% | Not exposed |
| Ships' Engineers · 3151 | 23% | Not exposed |
Read the whole six-band gradient on the GenAI exposure gradient page. The crosswalk is approximate: a US occupation can map to several international ones, and the ILO scores describe the international occupation, not this exact US role.
Working with AI in this job
How people actually apply AI to this occupation's tasks, from Claude.ai (Free and Pro) conversations in the Anthropic Economic Index, 2026-01-15. This is one AI assistant's consumer sample — not all AI, not the whole workforce. Autonomy and the collaboration mix are model-rated estimates; figures below the sample floor are hidden.
| Augmentation vs. automation | 28.2% working with AI · 51.8% handed to AI |
| Most common way people use AI here | Directive · AI does it; you give the instruction |
| Typical AI autonomy | 3.0 / 5 · higher = AI acts more independently |
What people delegate to AI
The role's most common tasks in AI conversations, each tagged with how people work with the AI on it. “Usage” is the share of observed conversations, not of the job.
| Task | How | Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. | Directive | 1.4% |
| Procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, and weather information. | Learning | 0.6% |
Where a human is still needed
Tasks where the model most often judged that a person remained necessary — a useful read on the current boundary, not a guarantee.
| Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. | 100.0% | |
| Procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, and weather information. | 98.2% |
What people most often hand AI here
Example prompts phrased from the tasks people most often delegate to AI in this occupation (Anthropic Economic Index). Each shows the underlying measured task and its share of observed AI use. They are suggested phrasings of real tasks — starting points, not endorsed instructions.
-
Help me provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning.From: Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. · 1.4% of measured AI use · directive
-
Help me procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, and weather information.From: Procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, and weather information. · 0.6% of measured AI use · learning
Tasks
All 27 tasks O*NET lists for this occupation, ordered by importance. Each links to its own page with AI-exposure and observed-use detail.
- Inspect airfield conditions to ensure compliance with federal regulatory requirements. Core · importance 4.9
- Implement airfield safety procedures to ensure a safe operating environment for personnel and aircraft operation. Core · importance 4.8
- Conduct inspections of the airport property and perimeter to maintain controlled access to airfields. Core · importance 4.7
- Assist in responding to aircraft and medical emergencies. Core · importance 4.7
- Initiate or conduct airport-wide coordination of snow removal on runways and taxiways. Core · importance 4.7
- Manage wildlife on and around airport grounds. Core · importance 4.6
- Coordinate communications between air traffic control and maintenance personnel. Core · importance 4.3
- Coordinate with agencies to meet aircrew requirements for billeting, messing, refueling, ground transportation, and transient aircraft maintenance. Supplemental · importance 4.3
- Perform and supervise airfield management activities, including mobile airfield management functions. Core · importance 4.3
- Plan and coordinate airfield construction. Core · importance 4.2
- Monitor the arrival, parking, refueling, loading, and departure of all aircraft. Core · importance 4.2
- Use airfield landing and navigational aids and digital data terminal communications equipment to perform duties. Supplemental · importance 4.2
- Train operations staff. Core · importance 4.1
- Coordinate with agencies, such as air traffic control, civil engineers, or command posts, to ensure support of airfield management activities. Core · importance 4.1
- Receive, transmit, and control message traffic. Supplemental · importance 4.0
- Maintain air-to-ground and point-to-point radio contact with aircraft commanders. Supplemental · importance 3.9
- Procure, produce, and provide information on the safe operation of aircraft, such as flight planning publications, operations publications, charts and maps, or weather information. Supplemental · importance 3.9
- Relay departure, arrival, delay, aircraft and airfield status, and other pertinent information to upline controlling agencies. Core · importance 3.8
- Anticipate aircraft equipment needs for air evacuation and cargo flights. Supplemental · importance 3.7
- Provide aircrews with information and services needed for airfield management and flight planning. Core · importance 3.7
- Post visual display boards and status boards. Supplemental · importance 3.7
- Receive and post weather information and flight plan data, such as air routes or arrival and departure times. Supplemental · importance 3.7
- Conduct departure and arrival briefings. Supplemental · importance 3.6
- Collaborate with others to plan flight schedules and air crew assignments. Supplemental · importance 3.6
- Maintain flight and event logs, air crew flying records, and flight operations records of incoming and outgoing flights. Supplemental · importance 3.5
- Coordinate changes to flight itineraries with appropriate Air Traffic Control (ATC) agencies. Supplemental · importance 3.2
- Check military flight plans with civilian agencies. Supplemental · importance 2.8
Emerging tasks
Newer responsibilities O*NET has flagged as growing for this occupation.
- Inspect airfield conditions to ensure safety and compliance with federal regulatory requirements.
- Issue notices to advise flight crews of airfield status.
- Monitor and manage the operation of drones within the airport airspace to ensure safe aircraft operations.
- Train operations staff on topics such as driving on airfields and security identification display area (SIDA) procedures.
Work activities
- Plan flight operations.
- Plan work operations.
- Coordinate flight control or management activities.
- Monitor vehicle movement or location.
- Communicate with others to coordinate vehicle movement.
- Train transportation or material moving personnel.
- Record operational details of travel.
- Meet with coworkers to communicate work orders or plans.
- Pilot aircraft.
- Review work orders or schedules to determine operations or procedures.
- Assist others during emergencies.
- Maintain facilities.
- Inspect facilities, equipment or supplies to ensure conformance to standards.
- Inspect facilities.
- Inspect work sites to identify potential environmental or safety hazards.
- Inspect facilities to ensure compliance with security or safety regulations.
- Remove snow.
- Confer with coworkers to coordinate maintenance or cleaning activities.
- Coordinate operational activities.
Knowledge, skills & abilities
O*NET importance rating, from 1 (not important) to 5 (extremely important).
Knowledge
Abilities
| Problem Sensitivity | 4.1 | |
| Deductive Reasoning | 4.1 | |
| Oral Comprehension | 4.0 | |
| Written Comprehension | 4.0 | |
| Oral Expression | 4.0 | |
| Inductive Reasoning | 3.8 | |
| Speech Clarity | 3.8 | |
| Written Expression | 3.6 | |
| Information Ordering | 3.6 | |
| Near Vision | 3.6 | |
| Far Vision | 3.6 | |
| Flexibility of Closure | 3.3 | |
| Perceptual Speed | 3.3 | |
| Selective Attention | 3.3 | |
| Speech Recognition | 3.3 |
Essential skills
| Active Listening | 4.0 | |
| Monitoring | 4.0 | |
| Reading Comprehension | 3.8 | |
| Speaking | 3.8 | |
| Critical Thinking | 3.8 | |
| Writing | 3.4 | |
| Active Learning | 3.3 |
Transferable skills
| Coordination | 3.8 | |
| Complex Problem Solving | 3.4 | |
| Instructing | 3.3 | |
| Judgment and Decision Making | 3.3 | |
| Social Perceptiveness | 3.1 | |
| Systems Analysis | 3.1 | |
| Systems Evaluation | 3.1 | |
| Time Management | 3.1 |
Skills in demand
Skills employers ask for in job postings for this occupation (Lightcast), with whether each is a common or specialized skill.
Showing the top 40 of 43.
Tools & technology
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 3 — Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
- Education
- Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
- Typical entry-level education
- High school diploma or equivalent · BLS, the typical path — not a requirement
- Related experience
- Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
- Preparation level
- SVP (6.0 to < 7.0) — total schooling plus on-the-job experience.
What to study: Transportation and Materials Moving . Fields of study crosswalked to this occupation (NCES CIP–SOC), not a requirement.
Education of current workers
Share of people in this occupation at each level of education.
| Some College Courses | 14.7% | |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 0.6% |
Interests & work styles
The interests and personal qualities O*NET associates with people who do this work.
Work styles
| Dependability | 8.0 | |
| Attention to Detail | 7.0 | |
| Integrity | 6.0 | |
| Cautiousness | 5.0 | |
| Cooperation | 4.0 | |
| Self-Control | 3.0 | |
| Stress Tolerance | 2.5 |
Career interests (Holland / RIASEC)
| Conventional | 4.9 | |
| Realistic | 4.6 | |
| Enterprising | 4.5 | |
| Investigative | 3.5 | |
| Social | 2.5 |
Interest areas
| Management/Administration | 4.2 | |
| Protective Service | 3.3 | |
| Transportation/Machine Operation | 2.7 | |
| Engineering | 2.4 |
Wages & employment
U.S. · annual wages (BLS OEWS)
| 10th percentile | $35,200 |
| 25th percentile | $41,220 |
| Median (50th) | $56,750 |
| 75th percentile | $78,320 |
| 90th percentile | $111,030 |
| People employed | 16,640 |
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 | 10,560 | $49,360 |
| Management of Companies and Enterprises · Sector | 800 | $112,730 |
| Educational Services · Sector | 220 | $43,750 |
| Manufacturing · Sector | 180 | $86,270 |
| Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services · Sector | 150 | $59,500 |
| Administrative and Support and Waste Management and Remediation Services · Sector | 70 | $57,710 |
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 | 13.24× | 10,560 |
| Management of Companies and Enterprises · Sector | 2.64× | 800 |
| Educational Services · Sector | 0.15× | 220 |
| Manufacturing · Sector | 0.13× | 180 |
| Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services · Sector | 0.13× | 150 |
Related occupations
Part of the Supply Chain & Transportation career cluster.
- Air Traffic Controllers · 53-2021.00 Compare →
- Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors · 53-1041.00 Compare →
- First-Line Supervisors of Passenger Attendants · 53-1044.00 Compare →
- Commercial Pilots · 53-2012.00 Compare →
- Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers · 53-2011.00 Compare →
- Aviation Inspectors · 53-6051.01 Compare →
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers · 11-3071.00 Compare →
- Railroad Conductors and Yardmasters · 53-4031.00 Compare →
- Flight Attendants · 53-2031.00 Compare →
- First-Line Supervisors of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators · 53-1043.00 Compare →
- Dispatchers, Except Police, Fire, and Ambulance · 43-5032.00 Compare →
- Facilities Managers · 11-3013.00 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 Airfield Operations Specialists — 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 3 — Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed · preparation tier
- Transportation and Materials Moving · field of study
Zoom out
On the global GenAI exposure gradient this work sits around the 56th percentile of 427 international occupations.
Write a report on thisheadline · factoids · citation
Airfield Operations Specialists show 58th-percentile AI task overlap — and about 1,600 annual U.S. openings
- Airfield Operations Specialists rank in the 58th percentile (Moderate 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 1,600 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 (+4.2%) from 2024 to 2034.BLS Employment Projections 2024–34
- Median annual pay is $56,750, across about 16,640 U.S. workers.BLS OEWS (May 2024)
- Of the AI use actually observed for this work, 28% looks like augmentation (drafting, iterating, checking) rather than hands-off automation — from a Claude.ai usage sample, not a census.2026-01-15-v4-plus-2025-03-27-v2
Copy the whole kit
Airfield Operations Specialists show 58th-percentile AI task overlap — and about 1,600 annual U.S. openings • Airfield Operations Specialists rank in the 58th percentile (Moderate 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 1,600 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 (+4.2%) from 2024 to 2034. (BLS Employment Projections 2024–34) • Median annual pay is $56,750, across about 16,640 U.S. workers. (BLS OEWS (May 2024)) • Of the AI use actually observed for this work, 28% looks like augmentation (drafting, iterating, checking) rather than hands-off automation — from a Claude.ai usage sample, not a census. (2026-01-15-v4-plus-2025-03-27-v2) Source: Singulariki — "Airfield Operations Specialists". https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-2022-00 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
- Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
- Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai Microsoft Research
- “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic
- AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans academic
- ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025 International Labour Organization
- IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022 Institute for Structural Research (IBS)
- Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation academic
- Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome academic
Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.
Cite this page
Plain
Singulariki. "Airfield Operations Specialists." 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; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026. https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-2022-00
APA
Singulariki. (2026). Airfield Operations Specialists. Singulariki: a source-backed encyclopedia of work. Retrieved June 7, 2026, from https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-2022-00
BibTeX
@misc{singulariki-role-53-2022-00,
title = {Airfield Operations Specialists},
author = {{Singulariki}},
year = {2026},
note = {O*NET 30.3; BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2024; BLS Employment Projections 2024–2034; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); Microsoft “Working with AI” working-with-ai; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130; AI Occupational Exposure (AIOE) Felten, Raj & Seamans; ILO / Gmyrek et al. GenAI exposure gradient 2025; IBS O*NET-SOC ↔ ISCO-08 occupation crosswalk 2022; Frey & Osborne (2013) frey-osborne-automation; Dingel & Neiman (2020) dingel-neiman-workathome. Accessed June 7, 2026},
url = {https://singulariki.com/roles/role-53-2022-00}
} Citations name the underlying public dataset releases — they reflect what this page is built from, not just the URL.