{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/flight-attendants/",
  "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": "Flight Attendants",
    "soc_code": "53-2031",
    "category": "Transportation",
    "us_employment": 131650,
    "median_annual_wage": 63580
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 73,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 15,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 13,
    "trust_premium": 13,
    "judgment_accountability": 13
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "At 15, the tasks that survive are the ones that require a body in the aisle — arming door slides, checking overhead bin latches row by row, hands-on CPR and AED use, physically wrestling an intoxicated passenger into a seat — while the automatable slice (PA announcements, meal preference tracking, connecting-gate lookups on the crew tablet) is real enough to keep it out of the 17-plus range.",
    "embodiment": "19 reflects an office that is 35,000 feet up and vibrating: pushing a 200-pound cart uphill on a pitching floor, working in 6-8% cabin humidity and reduced oxygen partial pressure, and being expected to open a 60-pound overwing exit and slide-evacuate strangers in smoke, which is about as uncontrolled as environments get short of firefighting.",
    "liability_shield": "The FAA Certificate of Demonstrated Proficiency is a real, personally-held certificate with annual recurrent training and checkrides under 14 CFR 121.417, and you are the crewmember whose lawful instruction passengers must obey under 49 USC 46504 — but you don't sign the airworthiness release or hold the operating certificate, which is why this sits at 13 and not with pilots at 18.",
    "trust_premium": "13 is earned in the moments passengers actually depend on the individual — the nervous flyer you talk down, the diabetic in 22C, the cabin that reads your calm during severe turbulence — but you are rotated across trips and rarely fly the same passenger twice, so the relationship is with the uniform more than with you personally.",
    "judgment_accountability": "At 13 you make calls the manual only frames: whether an ill passenger warrants a diversion recommendation to the captain, whether to deny further alcohol service, whether the door goes or stays shut when there's fire outside your exit — high-stakes discretion, but bounded by an FOM, checklists, and a captain who holds final authority under 14 CFR 91.3."
  },
  "rationale": "The job is physical safety work in a moving metal tube: securing cabins, operating exit doors, restraining unruly passengers, administering oxygen and first aid, and evacuating 180 people in 90 seconds. FAA regulation requires a minimum number of certificated attendants per aircraft based on seat count, which is a hard staffing floor no software can lower. AI erodes only the paperwork edges — service scripting, catering counts, irregular-ops rebooking messages — not the core.",
  "outlook": "Headcount tracks flight volume, not AI capability — regulatory crew minimums and strong union contracts keep this job largely intact through the 2030s, with service tasks thinning while the safety role stays central.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "FAA rulemaking or statute tightening 14 CFR 121.391 ratios — e.g. codifying the 1-per-50-seats floor against carrier petitions for single-attendant relief on small jets, or the AFA-CWA-backed push to keep minimum crew counts explicitly in the FAA Reauthorization Act. Certificate-holding attendants remain the legally required, individually liable safety crew under FAA enforcement (they hold personal certificates since 2004 and can be fined/decertified).",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Expanded in-flight medical and self-defense authority: if carriers formalize attendant authority to deviate from telemedicine ground advice (MedAire/STAT-MD), to call for diversion, or if DOT rules on unruly-passenger restraint place the decision to restrain/deplane explicitly with the purser rather than the captain, the role owns more consequential ambiguous calls.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: the occupation genuinely has two tiers. If AI absorbs the service tier (pre-order fulfillment, catering, IROPS rebooking on crew tablets, passenger comms), the residual job is emergency response, medical judgment, and conflict de-escalation — the tier no current system does. This raises the fraction of the day AI cannot do without any rule change.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Mandatory recurrent training scope expansion — e.g. FAA-required naloxone/AED/tourniquet and self-defense training (already in FAA Reauthorization language), each addition deepening the certificated-human requirement per aircraft.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 2
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no realistic route: passengers buy fares on price and schedule, not on crew identity, and no carrier has ever successfully charged for human cabin service as such. Embodiment is already near maximum at 19. Total realistic headroom is a few points on the institutional side; the score is high because the FAA staffing floor already does the work."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 119000,
        "wage": 50500
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 118770,
        "wage": 56000
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 120840,
        "wage": 56640
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 116260,
        "wage": 59050
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 96900,
        "wage": 61640
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 108480,
        "wage": 63760
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 126020,
        "wage": 68370
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 130110,
        "wage": 67130
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 131650,
        "wage": 63580
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 10.6,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}