AI exposure: Aircraft Service Attendants
Service aircraft with fuel. May de-ice aircraft, refill water and cooling agents, empty sewage tanks, service air and oxygen systems, or clean and polish exterior.
Reading this score
computedAt 24.5% of weighted task load, Aircraft Service Attendants sits at the 46th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 62.3% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 11 tasks it averages 2.68 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Complete forms describing tasks completed, at 73.3%. The least is Refill aircraft potable water tanks, at 0.0%. A gap of 73.3% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within transportation and material moving occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 52 roles in the group is 24.2%, and only 24 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 11 tasks, 2 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 9 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 0.82 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.68 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.68 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.73 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.05 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.36 | 0-3 |
Task by task
11 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Complete forms describing tasks completed. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.32 | exposed |
| Radio to flight dispatchers or other personnel to discuss incoming or outgoing aircraft. | 26.7% | 23.3% | 50.0% | 4.58 | exposed |
| Inspect aircraft components to locate cracks, breaks, leaks, or other problems. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 4.04 | untouched |
| Guide aircraft to designated areas using hand signals, batons, or other methods. | 10.8% | 14.2% | 75.0% | 4.73 | untouched |
| Tow aircraft to gates or hangars using tugs, tractors, or other vehicles. | 8.3% | 16.7% | 75.0% | 4.76 | untouched |
| Apply de-icing fluid to aircraft from baskets lifted by truck-mounted cranes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.97 | untouched |
| Refuel aircraft using hoses connected to fuel trucks. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.75 | untouched |
| Empty aircraft lavatory systems or refill them with sanitizer fluid. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Load baggage or cargo for crew or passengers. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.05 | untouched |
| Climb ladders to reach aircraft surfaces to be cleaned. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.01 | untouched |
| Refill aircraft potable water tanks. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.99 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 5 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.