Which airline pilot tasks are most exposed to AI?

Contact control towers for takeoff clearances, arrival instructions, and other information, using radio equipment. Record in log books information, such as flight times, distances flown, and fuel consumption. File instrument flight plans with air traffic control to ensure that flights are coordinated with other air traffic.

Will AI replace pilots? What the job data shows

Q: Will AI replace pilots?

Our estimate puts pilots at lower exposure: that is how much of the listed work is information processing AI tools can do or speed up, not a forecast that the job disappears. JobRipe doesn't have enough postings yet to show a demand trend.

AI exposure (estimate)

Lower exposure

From 24 O*NET tasks

Hiring demand on JobRipe

Demand trend: not enough data yet

Open jobs now

from 35 employers

An estimate, not a prediction. This is an estimate of how much of this kind of work AI tools can do or speed up, built from published task lists. It is not a prediction about your job, your employer or your career: most jobs change rather than disappear, and the parts that change are often the routine ones.

What the work is made of

Information work (reading, writing, calculating, analysing)about 10%
Planning, deciding and coordinatingabout 20%
Working directly with peopleabout 20%
Hands-on physical workabout 50%

Tasks AI tools can do or speed up

Contact control towers for takeoff clearances, arrival instructions, and other information, using radio equipment.
Record in log books information, such as flight times, distances flown, and fuel consumption.
File instrument flight plans with air traffic control to ensure that flights are coordinated with other air traffic.

Tasks that rely on people or hands-on work

Start engines, operate controls, and pilot airplanes to transport passengers, mail, or freight, adhering to flight plans, regulations, and procedures.
Respond to and report in-flight emergencies and malfunctions.
Inspect aircraft for defects and malfunctions, according to pre-flight checklists.
Monitor engine operation, fuel consumption, and functioning of aircraft systems during flights.

Tasks as published by O*NET for Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers.

Skills rising and falling in airline pilot job ads

Not enough postings from the same employers in both periods to compare skills yet.

Thinking about a move?

See nearby roles, how many of their skills you already have, what they pay in job ads, and free or government-funded ways to learn the rest.

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Related occupations

Flight attendantLower exposure

How we work this out

Every task O*NET lists for the occupation is put in one of four groups by its main verb and what it acts on. Information work counts fully towards exposure, planning and deciding half, working directly with people a fifth, and hands-on physical work not at all. Tasks are weighted by how important O*NET's survey of workers rates them. The weighted result is shown only as a band.

Information work (reading, writing, calculating, analysing)
counts fully towards exposure
Planning, deciding and coordinating
counts half towards exposure
Working directly with people
counts a fifth towards exposure
Hands-on physical work
counts not at all towards exposure

Bands: Lower exposure, Medium exposure from 40 in 100 weighted task points, Higher exposure from 65 in 100 weighted task points. Supplemental tasks count 70% of a core task.

Demand: new postings JobRipe first saw from 2026-07-26 to 2026-10-24 compared with the 90 days before (2026-04-27 onwards), only from employers JobRipe was already tracking before 2026-04-27, so adding employers never looks like growth. A trend needs at least 20 earlier postings from 5+ employers; a change of 15% or more is “growing” or “shrinking”. A rising or falling skill needs 10+ postings and a 5-point move.

Sources

O*NET 30.3 Database (task statements, task importance ratings, occupation data), U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA) · CC BY 4.0
Autor, Levy & Murnane (2003), The Skill Content of Recent Technological Change, Quarterly Journal of Economics 118(4) · used for the routine / non-routine task framework (method only, no data)
· used for the idea of rating exposure task by task from O*NET (method only, no data)