{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisors/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisors",
    "soc_code": "53-1041",
    "category": "Transportation",
    "us_employment": 9760,
    "median_annual_wage": 58170
  },
  "verdict": "EXPOSED",
  "risk_resistance": 57,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 12,
    "embodiment": 17,
    "liability_shield": 8,
    "trust_premium": 6,
    "judgment_accountability": 14
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "The load sheet, ULD build plan, and manifest reconciliation are already generated by systems like Sabre/AHM tools with the supervisor pressing accept, but nobody has automated walking the hold to confirm a 463L pallet's net is tensioned, that a DGR shipment's segregation matches the NOTOC, or that the belt loader operator stops before contacting the fuselage — roughly half the shift resists, which is why this sits at 12 rather than 16.",
    "embodiment": "This is ramp work in whatever the weather does: inside cargo holds at outside-air temperature, on wet aprons under jet blast, hand-checking tiedowns and lock latches, riding K-loaders, and doing it inside an active aircraft movement area where a positioning error becomes ground damage — 17 rather than 20 only because a meaningful share of the shift is spent at a terminal reconciling paperwork.",
    "liability_shield": "No FAA airman certificate protects this role — the credentials are employer-issued and program-based (IATA/49 CFR 175 hazmat recurrent training, SIDA badge, GSE operating authorizations), and when a load is out of CG or an undeclared lithium shipment gets aboard, enforcement lands on the certificate holder — the airline — with the supervisor exposed to termination and badge pull rather than personal license revocation, which is what puts this at 8 instead of 3.",
    "trust_premium": "Flight crews, dispatch, and freight forwarders care that the load sheet is correct and the aircraft closes on time, not who signed it; the relationship value is limited to the accumulated credibility with a specific station's captains and the handling agents who know which supervisor's ramp doesn't damage freight — real, but replaceable across shifts, hence 6.",
    "judgment_accountability": "When a last-minute AVI or human-remains shipment arrives, a pallet weight is obviously wrong, or a thunderstorm cell forces ramp closure mid-load, the supervisor decides whether to offload, reweigh, re-sequence, or hold the departure — calls made in minutes against pushback pressure with the safety-of-flight consequence real, though bounded by the carrier's GOM and weight-and-balance limits, which keeps it at 14 rather than 18."
  },
  "rationale": "The desk half of this job — load planning, weight-and-balance computation, manifest reconciliation, crew scheduling, delay reporting — is already handled by airline load-control software and will absorb more AI. The ramp half is not: directing loaders around a live aircraft, verifying hazmat placarding and cargo restraint by hand, catching a mis-tagged pallet before pushback, and owning the safety call when weather or a ground-damage event scrambles the plan. Scored for the modal ramp/cargo supervisor at a passenger or freight carrier, not a centralized load-control specialist.",
  "outlook": "Headcount thins as load planning centralizes into software-driven control centers, but a supervisor physically on the ramp signing off on hazmat, restraint, and safety stays employed through the decade.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "FAA rulemaking or carrier ops-spec language requiring a named, certificated person (e.g., a load planner/weight-and-balance signatory under the carrier's FAA-approved Weight and Balance Control Program in the Ops Specs) to personally sign the final loading instruction report and hazmat acceptance checklist, with AI output treated as advisory only. Precedent exists: 49 CFR 175.30 hazmat acceptance requires a trained person's verification, and IATA DGR requires a named acceptance-check signatory. A rule explicitly barring automated acceptance checks would harden this.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Post-accident NTSB recommendation after a load-shift or hazmat event traced to automated load planning, prompting FAA to require human countersignature on any AI-adjusted load plan change after doors close.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Carrier SMS (Safety Management System, required under 14 CFR Part 5) designating the ramp/cargo supervisor as the accountable person for ground-damage and load-integrity hazard reports, making the stop-work / reject-the-aircraft call a documented, individually-attributed decision rather than a dispatcher's.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: once load-control software absorbs manifest reconciliation, weight-and-balance math and delay coding, the residual job is exception handling — mis-tagged pallets, restraint verification, hazmat discrepancies, weather and ground-damage recovery. This raises the resistance of the remaining role without any new law, though it also shrinks headcount per station.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "embodiment",
        "change": "Little upward room; already 17. Airside ramp work in live-aircraft environments with weather, jet blast and non-standard cargo is among the least automatable settings, and autonomous ramp tugs/loaders (in trial at Amsterdam, Changi) automate the moving, not the supervising.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "No plausible route to a higher trust premium: cargo shippers and passengers never see this role and cannot pay a premium for a human in it. Also note the headcount risk — consolidation of load control into centralized remote centers (already standard at major carriers and third-party providers) can cut the number of these positions even as the per-job scores rise."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 9500,
        "wage": 53850
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 10020,
        "wage": 53610
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 8590,
        "wage": 53540
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 7950,
        "wage": 53490
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 9020,
        "wage": 58920
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 10160,
        "wage": 63940
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 9760,
        "wage": 58170
      }
    ],
    "from": 2019,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 2.7,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [
    {
      "slug": "captains-mates-and-pilots-of-water-vessels",
      "title": "Captains, Mates, and Pilots of Water Vessels",
      "verdict": "SAFE",
      "risk_resistance": 74,
      "median_wage": 92460,
      "overlap": 58,
      "skills_to_close": [
        "Equipment Maintenance",
        "Repairing",
        "Operation and Control",
        "Management of Financial Resources"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}