What a reservation agent costs in the US
The wage BLS measured across 118,710 jobs, what an employer pays on top of it, the pay in every state, and which of the job's core tasks already show up in AI use.
Medians for the whole US. Your own cost depends on where you hire, the benefits you offer and the hours worked.
- Median wage
- $44,390
- Hourly wage
- $21.34
- Loaded per hour
- $26.58
- Middle half earns
- $37,850 to $59,640
- Jobs in the US
- 118,710
Wage × 1.2455 for benefits and payroll taxes, from BLS.
A reservation agent in the US is paid a median $44,390 a year, $21.34 an hour, across 118,710 jobs. With benefits, a small employer pays about $55,290. Of its 6 core tasks, 1 showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026, and there Claude mostly assisted a person rather than doing it.
The work, task by task
The 6 core tasks O*NET lists for reservation and transportation ticket agents and travel clerks, most important first, and how each showed up in Claude.ai conversations in May 2026. The bar splits those conversations between Claude doing the task and Claude helping a person do it.
- 01Make and confirm reservations for transportation and accommodations, using telephones, faxes, mail, and computers.API: 100% did the task, 0% helped
- 02Confer with customers to determine their service requirements and travel preferences.
- 03Prepare customer invoices and accept payment.
- 04Answer inquiries regarding information, such as schedules, accommodations, procedures, or policies.Claude.ai: 28% did the task, 72% helped · API: 67% did the task
- 05Determine whether space is available on travel dates requested by customers, assigning requested spaces when available.
- 06Contact customers or travel agents to advise them of travel conveyance changes or to confirm reservations.API: 98% did the task, 2% helped
1 of 6 tasks appear in the Claude.ai sample of the Anthropic Economic Index for May 2026, and 2 more only in its sample of API traffic, where businesses run Claude inside their own software. A task without a row had too few conversations for Anthropic to publish, which is not the same as none. Shares are of all sampled Claude.ai conversations, so small figures are normal: 0.08% of every conversation that month was about this occupation.
Pay by state
The median annual wage in each state and DC, and the same wage fully loaded. Michigan pays the most, $60,220; West Virginia the least, $34,030. BLS publishes no figure where its sample is too small, which leaves 1 gap here.
| State | Median wage | Fully loaded | Middle half | Jobs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | $36,620 | $45,610 | $31,680 to $55,850 | 150 |
| Alaska | $45,870 | $57,130 | $45,200 to $59,980 | 1,000 |
| Arizona | $45,710 | $56,930 | $38,580 to $66,500 | 3,020 |
| Arkansas | $42,040 | $52,360 | $37,090 to $46,280 | 430 |
| California | $49,420 | $61,550 | $45,200 to $56,620 | 10,580 |
| Colorado | $45,960 | $57,240 | $44,840 to $61,080 | 3,650 |
| Connecticut | $39,380 | $49,050 | $35,560 to $46,640 | 510 |
| Delaware | $43,140 | $53,730 | $38,290 to $51,350 | 70 |
| District of Columbia | $46,550 | $57,980 | $39,630 to $57,850 | 100 |
| Florida | $39,490 | $49,180 | $36,740 to $48,730 | 14,740 |
| Georgia | $47,860 | $59,610 | $38,490 to $76,880 | 5,880 |
| Hawaii | $45,020 | $56,070 | $37,410 to $62,660 | 1,590 |
| Idaho | $40,230 | $50,110 | $34,930 to $50,800 | 420 |
| Illinois | $47,850 | $59,600 | $38,260 to $59,290 | 7,080 |
| Indiana | $41,400 | $51,560 | $36,580 to $73,230 | 550 |
| Iowa | $36,880 | $45,930 | $35,630 to $45,200 | 200 |
| Kansas | $34,940 | $43,520 | $31,750 to $43,040 | 180 |
| Kentucky | $45,840 | $57,090 | $38,360 to $70,740 | 1,860 |
| Louisiana | $44,520 | $55,450 | $34,450 to $58,800 | 520 |
| Maine | $40,700 | $50,690 | $38,060 to $48,780 | 410 |
| Maryland | $40,750 | $50,750 | $40,230 to $50,370 | 720 |
| Massachusetts | $44,230 | $55,090 | $40,830 to $47,200 | 1,560 |
| Michigan | $60,220 | $75,000 | $38,230 to $77,530 | 1,980 |
| Minnesota | $60,090 | $74,840 | $44,940 to $78,940 | 2,160 |
| Mississippi | $37,730 | $46,990 | $31,600 to $48,980 | 170 |
| Missouri | $40,560 | $50,520 | $33,320 to $46,740 | 1,770 |
| Montana | $43,110 | $53,690 | $35,890 to $50,350 | 480 |
| Nebraska | $37,850 | $47,140 | $35,970 to $38,600 | 650 |
| Nevada | $41,000 | $51,070 | $37,320 to $50,090 | 2,660 |
| New Hampshire | $40,920 | $50,970 | $38,560 to $45,030 | 150 |
| New Jersey | $38,780 | $48,300 | $38,780 to $49,910 | 2,780 |
| New Mexico | $47,850 | $59,600 | $40,550 to $78,540 | 600 |
| New York | $42,990 | $53,540 | $38,710 to $49,590 | 5,510 |
| North Carolina | $44,630 | $55,590 | $36,120 to $76,420 | 5,760 |
| North Dakota | $34,870 | $43,430 | $34,530 to $39,020 | 150 |
| Ohio | $36,070 | $44,930 | $35,170 to $55,580 | 1,200 |
| Oklahoma | $47,340 | $58,960 | $45,000 to $80,200 | 920 |
| Oregon | $40,570 | $50,530 | $38,280 to $46,280 | 1,340 |
| Pennsylvania | $44,380 | $55,280 | $36,410 to $75,190 | 4,020 |
| Rhode Island | $45,420 | $56,570 | $42,850 to $59,180 | 210 |
| South Carolina | $43,740 | $54,480 | $37,200 to $53,630 | 1,010 |
| South Dakota | $35,860 | $44,660 | $31,430 to $38,160 | 230 |
| Tennessee | $38,530 | $47,990 | $37,630 to $62,630 | 1,410 |
| Texas | $38,220 | $47,600 | $30,700 to $57,590 | 18,410 |
| Utah | $38,660 | $48,150 | $37,550 to $49,650 | 3,260 |
| Vermont | $38,310 | $47,720 | $37,870 to $43,390 | 140 |
| Virginia | $44,140 | $54,980 | $39,280 to $48,140 | 2,540 |
| Washington | $48,520 | $60,430 | $44,920 to $63,870 | 2,970 |
| West Virginia | $34,030 | $42,380 | $29,550 to $35,890 | 100 |
| Wisconsin | $35,950 | $44,780 | $31,580 to $38,310 | 880 |
| Wyoming | Not published | · | · | · |
The same benefits ratio applies in every state, because BLS does not publish benefit costs by business size for each state. The middle half is the 25th to 75th percentile wage.
Where the numbers come from
Every figure is copied from a public file. The only arithmetic is the loaded cost: the wage times 1.2455.
- Wages
- BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, occupation 43-4181 (Reservation and Transportation Ticket Agents and Travel Clerks). Annual figures are the hourly wage times 2,080 hours, as BLS computes them, so they already include pay for paid leave.
- Fully loaded
- BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation, June 2026 (2026 Q2), private businesses with 1 to 49 workers: $37.64 an hour in total compensation over $27.88 in wages plus $2.34 in paid leave gives 1.2455. Paid leave sits in the denominator because the annual wage already pays it.
- Tasks
- O*NET 31.0 core tasks for 43-4181.00, the ten most important by their importance rating. A few occupations list fewer core tasks.
- AI use
- Anthropic Economic Index, release of June 2026, conversations from May 2026. "Did the task" is Anthropic's automation share, where the user directs Claude to do the work; "helped" is augmentation, where the user works with Claude to learn, check or iterate.
- Not measured
- What a particular business pays, and whether an AI system can do a task well. The AI figures count conversations about a task, not jobs replaced.
This page 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. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. AI use data from the Anthropic Economic Index by Anthropic, under CC BY. Wage and benefit data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
What would an AI system cost for this work?
Put $55,290 beside the running cost of a system doing the tasks above, with the build counted in year one.
BLS wages May 2025 · O*NET 31.0 · Anthropic Economic Index