Aviation Operations Specialist Job Description

An Aviation Operations Specialist is the person on shift who knows the condition of the airfield right now and makes sure everyone who depends on that information has it. BLS lists the title in its SOC direct-match file under Airfield Operations Specialists (53-2022), and O*NET describes that occupation as work to "ensure the safe takeoff and landing of commercial and military aircraft," including coordination between air traffic control and maintenance personnel, airfield safety procedures, flight records and weather information. The job lives in two kinds of offices: the operations center at a certificated airport, and the operations desk that tracks flights for an airline, a charter company or a government airfield.

At an airport, the shift opens with an inspection. The specialist drives the runways, taxiways and safety areas in an operations truck with a tower radio, looking at pavement edges, light fixtures, sign panels, paint markings, standing water and anything loose enough to be ingested by an engine. A dead edge light becomes a work order for the electricians. A closed taxiway, an inoperative approach light or a crane near the departure path becomes a NOTAM, and the specialist checks that the published notice says exactly what the field shows.

The rest of the shift is coordination. A paving contractor wants a taxiway segment closed; the tower wants to know when the runway will be back; an airline needs a parking spot for a diverted narrowbody; airfield maintenance needs an escort across an active runway. The specialist works those requests against the airport's procedures and records each decision. Winter brings snow and ice control: friction and contaminant checks, plow priorities and runway condition reports. Wildlife work runs all year, from hazing gulls off a runway to collecting carcasses and documenting strikes.

When something goes wrong, the specialist is part of the first response. That means rolling with aircraft rescue and firefighting units to an alert, managing access for mutual-aid vehicles, setting up staging areas, and keeping the time-stamped log that investigators and the after-action review will rely on. O*NET's task list for the occupation also includes monitoring and managing the operation of drones within the airport airspace.

On the flight-operations side, the same occupation covers desk work O*NET lists alongside the airfield tasks: posting arrival and departure status, receiving weather and flight-plan data, maintaining flight logs and aircrew flying records, coordinating itinerary changes with air traffic control, and giving crews the charts, publications and weather they need for planning.

The specialist does not set airport policy or budgets. Supervisors and operations managers write the procedures; the specialist carries them out, documents them and flags where they do not fit what happens on the field.

There is no single required degree. O*NET places Airfield Operations Specialists in Job Zone Three, medium preparation, and its survey respondents reported a mix of entry education: a bachelor's degree required for some jobs, a high school diploma for some, and some college without a degree for others. As a rough guide, three backgrounds lead into the job:

• Aviation degree programs: an associate or bachelor's degree in aviation management, airport management or aviation operations, often paired with an internship in an airport operations office.
• Military airfield experience: airfield management, base operations or aviation operations work in the armed forces carries over to civilian airfield duties and terminology.
• Ramp, line service and ARFF experience: fixed-base operator line service, airline ramp work or firefighting builds airfield familiarity, radio discipline and comfort working around moving aircraft.

Regulatory training. Airports certificated under 14 CFR Part 139 must train the people who access movement areas and safety areas and perform duties under the rule, before they first perform those duties and at least once every 12 consecutive calendar months after that. The curriculum includes airport familiarization, including the marking, lighting and sign system, along with procedures for access to and operation in movement and safety areas. At airports covered by the Part 139 safety management system rule, employees with responsibilities under the airport's SMS also need SMS training appropriate to their role, completed at least every twenty-four months.

Credentials worth pursuing. The American Association of Airport Executives (AAAE) runs the Airport Certified Employee (ACE) program, including an ACE Operations credential. For specialists aiming at management, AAAE also awards the Certified Member (C.M.) designation. A private pilot certificate from the FAA is not required, but it gives a specialist a pilot's view of signs, markings, radio calls and NOTAMs.

Skills that matter on shift:

• Clear, standard radio phraseology with the tower and ground control
• Reading airport diagrams, approach plates and construction safety phasing plans
• Precise, time-stamped writing in inspection logs and incident reports
• Calm triage when an alert, a snowstorm and a diversion arrive at the same hour
• Driving in the movement area without incursions, in daylight, darkness and low visibility

Software. O*NET's list of software used in the occupation includes Microsoft Access and Microsoft SharePoint, plus airport-specific tools such as TRMI Airport AVI. Airports and operators also run their own inspection, work-order and NOTAM entry systems, so expect employer-specific training on those.

As a rough guide, a specialist with two to four years of shift experience and a clean inspection and incident record is in a good position to move into a supervisor role.

BLS counted 15,190 Airfield Operations Specialists nationally in May 2025. O*NET flags the occupation as a Bright Outlook occupation, projecting much faster than average growth (7% or higher) for 2025 to 2035 and about 1,500 openings a year on average from growth and replacement. Each opening is tied to one place: an airport, an airline station or a government airfield, so a move between employers may mean a move between cities.

Pay depends on the employer type. BLS reports a May 2025 median of $59,720 for the occupation in local government and $52,330 in scheduled air transportation. BLS does not report the Aviation Operations Specialist title separately from the broader occupation.

Safety management systems. One regulatory change for airport operations offices is the Part 139 safety management system rule, Subpart E, published as Amendment 139-28 on Feb. 23, 2023. It applies to certificated airports classified as large, medium or small hubs, airports averaging 100,000 or more total annual operations over the previous three calendar years, and ports of entry, designated international airports, landing rights airports and user fee airports. Those groups had to submit implementation plans to the FAA on or before April 24, 2024, Oct. 24, 2024 and April 24, 2025, respectively. For specialists, the rule turns daily inspection findings and hazard reports into formal inputs: hazards go into a safety reporting system, risk analyses get documented, and the airport keeps those records for set periods.

Wildlife. The FAA's National Wildlife Strike Database recorded 24,447 reported strikes in 2025, an increase of 9.3% from the 22,371 reported in 2024, according to the agency's 1990-2025 serial report. Wildlife patrols, hazing and strike documentation are standing duties on the operations shift.

Where the job leads. One path runs from specialist to operations supervisor or duty manager, then to airport operations manager, and at smaller fields to assistant airport manager or airport manager. Specialists who build expertise in a niche, such as wildlife hazard management, construction safety phasing, SMS administration or emergency planning, can move into those program roles at larger airports or into consulting. Those on the flight-operations side can move toward operations control, dispatch with the appropriate FAA certificate, or station management.

The core of the job. The work rests on presence and judgment on a live airfield: seeing a hazard, deciding with the duty supervisor whether it closes a surface, and telling the right people in the right words. New systems for NOTAM entry, debris detection and record keeping change how that information is captured and moved; as of 2026, someone still drives the runway, verifies the alert and signs the log.

Dear Operations Manager,

Please consider me for the Aviation Operations Specialist opening at Lakeshore Regional Airport. For the past four years I have worked in airfield management on an Air National Guard base that shares its runway with a commercial terminal, and I am ready to bring that experience to a civilian operations office.

My shifts started the way yours do: an airfield check before the first departure. I learned to read a runway the way a pilot sees it, to log a broken sign panel with enough detail that the electrician finds it on the first trip, and to write a notice that says what is closed, where, and until when, with nothing extra. When our base hosted a construction project on the parallel taxiway, I was the escort and coordinator for the paving contractor for five months. I tracked their equipment heights against the obstruction limits every morning, worked closures with the tower, and caught two staging areas that had drifted into the safety area before anyone else noticed.

I have also worked the bad days. During a hydraulic failure on a landing tanker, I staged the crash trucks, kept the time log from first call to runway reopening, and briefed the incoming shift so nothing fell through. Winter at our base meant snow removal plans, runway condition checks every few hours, and long conversations with the tower about which surfaces were usable.

What draws me to Lakeshore is the mix of traffic: airline flights, cargo, flight training and a busy general aviation ramp. That variety is where an operations specialist earns trust, and I want to be the person tenants call because they know the answer will be accurate.

I would welcome the chance to ride along on an inspection and talk about how I can support your team.

Sincerely, Jordan Avery