There’s a quiet fear running through business aviation right now, and it’s not about tariffs or fleet utilization.
It’s about relevance.
AI can draft proposals, schedule trips, generate market comps, and summarize inspections in seconds. Your people know this. Whether they’re on the flight deck, in the hangar, or behind a sales desk, they’re asking themselves: Am I next?
That question doesn’t get asked out loud. It shows up as disengagement, quiet quitting, or your best people fielding recruiter calls they would’ve ignored a year ago.
The threat isn’t AI. It’s leadership silence.
‍
Name It Before It Names You
Most leaders in bizav haven’t addressed AI directly with their teams. The assumption is that it’s not relevant to aviation, or that people will figure it out. Both are wrong.
Your team needs to hear your position, not a corporate policy. Something as direct as:Â
“We’re using AI to take busywork off your plate so you can do more of the work that actually requires you, judgment, relationships, and problem-solving.”
That sentence, from the person who signs the checks, can be worth more than a retention bonus.
‍
Reward Getting Better, Not Staying Busy
Many of your people are experimenting with AI in secret, afraid that demonstrating what a tool can do will convince someone above them that the tool is enough. They’re hiding efficiency gains because they think getting better gets them fired.
Reverse the incentive. Ask each person to bring one “AI win” to the next team meeting, a two-hour task that now takes twenty minutes, a customer insight they couldn’t have surfaced manually. Then recognize it publicly. The message is clear: we reward improvement, not just effort.
‍
Elevate the Role. Don’t Eliminate the Person.
The default move is efficiency: do more with fewer people. That math creates fear, fear creates turnover, and turnover guts your operation.
The better move is elevation. Use AI to absorb low-value tasks so your people take on higher-value work. Your scheduler becomes an ops strategist. Your sales coordinator becomes a deal architect. Your maintenance admin becomes a compliance analyst.
Pick your top three roles. List what AI could handle tomorrow, and what that person could own if the busywork disappeared. Then co-create the new role with them.
‍
The Real Risk
AI isn’t going to hollow out business aviation. But leadership silence during an uncertain moment will. Your people need to know they have a future here, and that the future is bigger, not smaller, because of the tools now available.
‍