Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers

Moderate Risk
51%
Where Would You Like to Go Next?
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Vote Comments (78)
Or, Explore This Profession in Greater Detail...
AUTOMATION RISK
CALCULATED
65%
(High Risk)
POLLING
37%
(Low Risk)
Average: 51%
LABOR DEMAND
GROWTH
5.0%
by year 2033
WAGES
$219,140
or $105.35 per hour
Volume
93,670
as of 2023
SUMMARY
JOB SCORE
5.9/10

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Calculated automation risk

65% (High Risk)

High Risk (61-80%): Jobs in this category face a significant threat from automation, as many of their tasks can be easily automated using current or near-future technologies.

More information on what this score is, and how it is calculated is available here.

Some quite important qualities of the job are difficult to automate:

  • Manual Dexterity

  • Social Perceptiveness

  • Finger Dexterity

User poll

37% chance of full automation within the next two decades

Our visitors have voted there's a low chance this occupation will be automated. However, the automation risk level we have generated suggests a much higher chance of automation: 65% chance of automation.

What do you think the risk of automation is?

What is the likelihood that Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers will be replaced by robots or artificial intelligence within the next 20 years?






Sentiment

The following graph is included wherever there is a substantial amount of votes to render meaningful data. These visual representations display user poll results over time, providing a significant indication of sentiment trends.

Sentiment over time (yearly)

Growth

Moderate growth relative to other professions

The number of 'Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers' job openings is expected to rise 5.0% by 2033

Total employment, and estimated job openings

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for the period between 2021 and 2031
Updated projections are due 09-2024.

Wages

Very high paid relative to other professions

In 2023, the median annual wage for 'Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers' was $219,140, or $105 per hour

'Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers' were paid 356.0% higher than the national median wage, which stood at $48,060

Wages over time

* Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Volume

Moderate range of job opportunities compared to other professions

As of 2023 there were 93,670 people employed as 'Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers' within the United States.

This represents around 0.06% of the employed workforce across the country

Put another way, around 1 in 1 thousand people are employed as 'Airline Pilots, Copilots, and Flight Engineers'.

Job description

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.

SOC Code: 53-2011.00

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Comments

Leave a comment

Mason Braswelle (No chance) 1 month ago
The amount of things pilots have to do in order to ensure safe flights is astounding, not to mention that if something were to go wrong, what would the robot even do?
0 0 Reply
Jeremy (Low) 2 months ago
Although the actual flight operation can be managed by AI, there is always the chance that the AI will fail at controlling the plane. Also there is always different situations for landing and takeoff, AI won't always be able to predict and maneuver the next move.
0 0 Reply
rorik 3 months ago
consider that nothing manufactured by humans are perfect, with such a reality, you cannot assume that a robot/ai could do it's job flawlessly. there are ethical decisions in emergencies that must be made in the cockpit that an ai simply cannot do. furthermore, redundancy is a core value in aviation, and until human manufacturing is perfect (arguably wont ever be), a pilot will always be needed in the cockpit as a form of redundancy in case the manufactured systems malfunction.
1 0 Reply
dan (Low) 3 months ago
ask yourself this question, how would you feel if the most beloved person to you was on a plane controlled by a robot that could be hacked, glitch, or malfunction
0 0 Reply
Anonymous 5 months ago
The technology exists, but is it socially acceptable? It’s similar to how self driving cars have been a thing since the late 90s (couldn’t believe it either), and have become more mainstream in the last few years. Pilots will probably lose their jobs when people become comfortable flying in fully autonomous aircraft. However, emergencies can still happen, so it will probably take even longer for machines to take over.
1 1 Reply
bob (Highly likely) 5 months ago
1 word autopilot
1 4 Reply
L 3 months ago
Who said that an autopilot is more reliable than a human captain?
0 0 Reply
Anonymous (Moderate) 5 months ago
Because pilots even today have a sizeable portion of the piloting during flight cut out for them with autopilot and it is already so trustworthy and efficient that they can sleep around a half hour while autopilot is on before being woken up by an alarm. Though this is balanced out by takeoff and landing which is much more tricky to automate and there is still the need for pilot input during emergencies
0 1 Reply
LBFEBNL (Moderate) 5 months ago
If wanted, the aircraft manufacturer could easily develop a computer to follow all the instructions that pilots need to follow too, like taxiing, departure (still needs human help), cruising (already taken over by autopilot but still needs human help if an emergency happens), and landing.

That is for the pilot. For the co-pilot, it is highly likely because the A.I. doesn't need to do all the instructions; they just do half of it, and the rest the pilot will handle.

For the flight engineer, I think it has a lower chance of getting replaced by A.I. or some sort of computer.

But this is overall just my opinion.
0 1 Reply
p 5 months ago
flight engineers arent a thing anymore... they havent been very common since like 90s
1 0 Reply
James (Moderate) 5 months ago
Yeah the 64% chance scares my freind who is a pilot
0 1 Reply
criag (No chance) 5 months ago
There are many airlines that want soft, silky landings and not slammy, hard, ai- landings
1 0 Reply
Josh (Low) 5 months ago
It is a very complex job that requires concentration and multitasking of witch a robot can't di
1 0 Reply
1 5 months ago
although i agree a robot cant do everything a pilot has to do robots are still much better at multitasking than humans ever will be
0 0 Reply
. (Low) 10 months ago
you will always need humans incase something happened. its possible but not in the next 20 years
0 0 Reply
Luca (Highly likely) 1 year ago
Automated flight is already a well-established reality, the pilot on board serves only to reassure passengers who are not yet accustomed to the idea of a completely automated flight.
0 1 Reply
Oxtin Poss 7 months ago
We are no where near completely autonomous flight. We barely have self-driving cars, which are normally confined to certain parameters. There are so many variables and things that could go wrong, that it simply isn’t viable yet.
1 0 Reply
boo (Low) 1 year ago
Automation has the ability to control events in a certain context, and wouldn't be able to handle an emergency or malfunction, considering the usual age of aircraft computers.
0 0 Reply
Harry (Low) 1 year ago
Landing and take off needs accurate readings and a lot of man power we also need to understand the runway so it my not be
0 0 Reply
KickinTyres (Low) 1 year ago
The public's perception of safety is intrinsically connected to having human pilots in the cockpit.
0 0 Reply
Ayden (No chance) 1 year ago
New plane can fly it self but they still need pilot or co pilot to make sure nothing is going wrong especially when it is landing
0 0 Reply
Alneez (Moderate) 1 year ago
Airbus Project Dragonfly
0 0 Reply
C.L.M. (No chance) 1 year ago
It is not a technological issue, it is a sociological, legislative, and regulatory one.

People are too anxious to get on a plane without another human being up front with their life and safety on the line. This will be even more true as we move through the inevitable accidents during automation of ground transportation. At least that's what I heard as an FAA research scientist working on future drone airspace research projects.
0 0 Reply
Captam (Highly likely) 1 year ago
The “need for the human touch“ when things “go wrong“ with a flight is arguably correct However this function can be provided perfectly adequately from a remote control room. The human does not need to be sitting in the cockpit. The ability to fly precision drone operarions from control rooms thousands of miles away proves this. Flights can be totally automated but when an abnormality occurs, the controllers (who oversee multiple flights)can be alerted, and intervene renotely if necessaey.
0 0 Reply
AJ 4 months ago
Those are heavy assumptions that there is strong two way communication between the aircraft and the ground station controlling it. Not a lot of the areas that airplanes are flying over will be able to maintain a constant communication (such as war zones, the arctic, or the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean) and before you say GPS keep in mind it works by sending low bit data so that doesn’t exactly work well when complicated or heavy computing conditions exist. Plus if you can control it remotely so can someone else looking to cause trouble.
1 0 Reply

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