---
title: "Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisor"
description: "Supervise and coordinate the activities of ground crew in the loading, unloading, securing, and staging of aircraft cargo or baggage. May determine the…"
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor"
last-updated: "2026-10-09T10:57:55.138Z"
---

# Aircraft Cargo Handling Supervisor

**Category:** Transportation and Material Moving · **SOC code:** 53-1041 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 53-1041.00

Supervise and coordinate the activities of ground crew in the loading, unloading, securing, and staging of aircraft cargo or baggage. May determine the quantity and orientation of cargo and compute aircraft center of gravity. May accompany aircraft as member of flight crew and monitor and handle cargo in flight, and assist and brief passengers on safety and emergency procedures. Includes loadmasters.

Also advertised as: Cargo Supervisor; Ground Operations Supervisor; Line Service Supervisor (LSS); Loadmaster; Ramp and Cargo Supervisor; Ramp Supervisor.

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $58,170 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $27.97/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $41,690 to $92,160, with the middle half between $49,820 and $78,530
- **Total US employment:** 9,760
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +9.2% over 2025–2035 (BLS EP, 2025–2035)
- **Annual job openings:** 900 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 57/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 9,760 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $41,690 |
| 25th | $49,820 |
| 50th (median) | $58,170 |
| 75th | $78,530 |
| 90th | $92,160 |
| Mean (average) | $65,010 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| GA | $81,380 | $84,513 | 150 |
| OH | $79,650 | $85,854 | 100 |
| LA | $79,460 | $90,084 | 40 |
| CO | $79,260 | $76,913 | 190 |
| CT | $78,770 | $76,025 | 50 |
| VA | $78,420 | $77,564 | 240 |
| MO | $76,450 | $84,180 | 100 |
| IN | $75,880 | $81,304 | 60 |
| PA | $75,620 | $77,502 | 450 |
| AZ | $74,780 | $74,277 | 220 |
| AR | $73,520 | $84,567 | 40 |
| NM | $72,760 | $78,905 | 50 |
| NV | $70,740 | $70,755 | 170 |
| NJ | $65,590 | $60,282 | 60 |
| FL | $62,240 | $60,185 | 740 |

22 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 37 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 9,700 in the 2025–2035 base year to 10,600 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 900 jobs, or +9.2%. Much faster than average: 9.2% against 3.5% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 900 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2025–2035.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Little or no preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone 1-2: Very Little to Some Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** Less than 5 years.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** None.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma or the equivalent (such as a GED) | 64.1% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 18.5% |
| Less than a High School Diploma | 10.2% |
| Some College Courses | 4.7% |
| Post-Secondary Certificate | 2.6% |

## What the work involves

- Train new employees in areas such as safety procedures or equipment operation.
- Distribute cargo to maximize use of space.
- Direct ground crews in the loading, unloading, securing, or staging of aircraft cargo or baggage.
- Determine the quantity and orientation of cargo, and compute an aircraft's center of gravity.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Critical Thinking — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Listening — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Learning Strategies — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Management of Personnel Resources — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Instructing — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Systems Analysis — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Public Safety and Security — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administration and Management — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Administrative — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Comprehension — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Problem Sensitivity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Deductive Reasoning — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Far Vision — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Selective Attention — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Conventional (C), Realistic (R).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 5.37 |
| C — Conventional | 4.79 |
| R — Realistic | 4.60 |
| S — Social | 2.47 |
| I — Investigative | 2.19 |
| A — Artistic | 1.00 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 88.7 |
| ISTJ | 79.7 |
| ESFJ | 73.6 |
| ISFJ | 69.3 |
| ESTP | 67.6 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [First-Line Supervisor of Material-Moving Machine and Vehicle Operators](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-material-moving-machine-and-vehicle-operators) — median $62,840
- [Airfield Operations Specialist](https://nuecareer.com/careers/airfield-operations-specialist) — median $56,850
- [Transportation Inspector](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-inspector) — median $92,100
- [First-Line Supervisor of Passenger Attendants](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-passenger-attendants) — median $62,840
- [First-Line Supervisor of Helpers, Laborers, and Material Movers, Hand](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-helpers-laborers-and-material-movers-hand) — median $62,840
- [Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/transportation-storage-and-distribution-manager) — median $107,230
- [Dispatcher](https://nuecareer.com/careers/dispatcher) — median $50,340
- [Industrial Truck and Tractor Operator](https://nuecareer.com/careers/industrial-truck-and-tractor-operator) — median $46,420
- [Cargo and Freight Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/cargo-and-freight-agent) — median $52,260
- [First-Line Supervisor of Production and Operating Workers](https://nuecareer.com/careers/first-line-supervisor-of-production-and-operating-workers) — median $74,450

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2025–2035. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 31.0 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/aircraft-cargo-handling-supervisor