diff --git a/airflow/utils.py b/airflow/utils.py
index 09e086ab5dd97..0f74532e355a9 100644
--- a/airflow/utils.py
+++ b/airflow/utils.py
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 from builtins import str, input, object
 from past.builtins import basestring
 from copy import copy
-from datetime import datetime, timedelta
+from datetime import datetime, date, timedelta
 from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta  # for doctest
 from email.mime.text import MIMEText
 from email.mime.multipart import MIMEMultipart
@@ -29,6 +29,8 @@
 from sqlalchemy import event, exc
 from sqlalchemy.pool import Pool
 
+import numpy as np
+
 from airflow import settings
 from airflow.configuration import conf
 
@@ -621,9 +623,20 @@ def chain(*tasks):
 
 class AirflowJsonEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):
     def default(self, obj):
+        # convert dates and numpy objects in a json serializable format
         if isinstance(obj, datetime):
             return obj.strftime('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ')
         elif isinstance(obj, date):
             return obj.strftime('%Y-%m-%d')
+        elif type(obj) in [np.int_, np.intc, np.intp, np.int8, np.int16,
+                           np.int32, np.int64, np.uint8, np.uint16,
+                           np.uint32, np.uint64]:
+            return int(obj)
+        elif type(obj) in [np.bool_]:
+            return bool(obj)
+        elif type(obj) in [np.float_, np.float16, np.float32, np.float64,
+                           np.complex_, np.complex64, np.complex128]:
+            return float(obj)
+
         # Let the base class default method raise the TypeError
         return json.JSONEncoder.default(self, obj)