Will AI replace Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers?
Transportation and Material Moving · O*NET 53-2011.00
Task exposure index for this occupation
Averaged across the week, this work sits in the middle of the exposure scale: a real part of it is already automatable and a real part is not. O*NET breaks Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers into 21 distinct work activities. Weighted by how much of the week each one takes, 5% of the job sits at or above the threshold where current systems can do the task end to end. The single largest contributor is "Communicate with others to coordinate vehicle movement", which scores 40 and takes roughly 13% of the week. That is the average for the job title. It is not a measurement of any particular person’s week, and the difference between the two is usually larger than the difference between job titles.
Model v1.2 · activity indices last updated 18 August 2026
What this occupation does
Pilot and navigate the flight of fixed-wing aircraft, usually on scheduled air carrier routes, for the transport of passengers and cargo. Requires Federal Air Transport certificate and rating for specific aircraft type used. Includes regional, national, and international airline pilots and flight instructors of airline pilots.
The most exposed parts of the job
Scored 0–100 on how completely a current system could perform the activity.
- Record operational details of travel.95
About 4% of a typical week
- Arrange maintenance activities.64
About 1% of a typical week
- Plan flight operations.58
About 1% of a typical week
- Choose optimal transportation routes or speeds.54
About 4% of a typical week
- Monitor equipment gauges or displays to ensure proper operation.52
About 6% of a typical week
The least exposed parts
The same scale. These are the activities current systems handle worst.
- Respond to transportation emergencies.12
About 2% of a typical week
- Maintain locomotives or other rail equipment in good working condition.16
About 1% of a typical week
- Pilot aircraft.18
About 24% of a typical week
- Coordinate flight control or management activities.26
About 7% of a typical week
- Resolve issues affecting transportation operations.26
About 4% of a typical week
How far off the rest is
Of those 21 activities, 1 can be performed by systems available today and 9 are outside what current approaches do at all. The remaining 11 sit in between — demonstrated in research or in narrow products, but not something you can hand over whole. We do not put dates on that middle group, because nobody can.
Compared with similar occupations
The nearest scoring roles in Transportation and Material Moving.
- Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers (this page)36
- Shuttle Drivers and Chauffeurs37
- Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors37
- Tank Car, Truck, and Ship Loaders36
Why your own number is different
Two people with the title "Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers" can spend their weeks on almost entirely different parts of this list, and the parts they choose move the number far more than the title does. Who signs off when the work is wrong, whether the job needs you physically present, and how fast you have picked up the tools all change it again — and none of that is in an occupation average.
The assessment asks you to divide your own week across these activities and answer fourteen questions about the parts of the job an occupation average cannot see. It takes six to nine minutes.
Score my own roleFree to take. The full report is a paid subscription — the price and its terms are on the pricing section, before you start.
Questions
Will AI replace Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers?
We do not answer that, because nobody can. What is measurable is how much of the work is already doable by machine: for Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers, about 5% of a typical week, across 21 activities. The other 95% is not, and what happens to the job depends on things this index does not contain — cost, regulation, who carries the liability, and what the people doing it decide to do next.
What part of this job is most exposed?
"Record operational details of travel" — it scores 95 out of 100 on task automatability and takes roughly 4% of the week.
What part is least exposed?
"Respond to transportation emergencies", at 12 out of 100. Work like that is where the hours you protect tend to be worth the most.
Where do these numbers come from?
The activity list and the time weights come from O*NET 30.3, the US Department of Labor's occupational database. The exposure score for each activity is ours, from a published model — the weights, the priors and the limitations are all on the methodology page. No language model is involved in the arithmetic.
Does this apply to my job?
Only roughly. This is the average for the title, and the number that matters is the one for the week you actually work. The assessment asks you to divide your own time across these activities and answer fourteen questions about accountability, the parts of the job that need you specifically, and how fast you have adapted. That produces a different number, and usually a more useful one.
The full model — the weights, the priors and what it cannot see — is on the methodology page.