From AI search to traditional search – discover the complete flights and airlines landscape

Flights & Airline Intelligence

Flights and airlines sector intelligence ccombines AI search and traditional search data to provide a complete view of how brands perform across modern digital journeys. Dashboard data is updated weekly, with expert market insights and analysis published monthly.

Market: UK & US
Search environments: Google search and AI conversational platforms
Categories analysed: General flights | Flights across locations: Africa & Australasia | Caribbean | Central & South America | France | Italy |Middle East & | Asia | Rest of Europe | Spain | UK | US & Canada
Search dataset: Long-tail informational and transactional queries reflecting real consumer research, route comparison and booking behaviour
Dashboard refresh frequency: Weekly
Market insights publication: Monthly

The flights and airlines dashboard combines weekly updated leaderboards, visibility trends and movement data to show how airlines, travel brands and publishers compete across AI-driven discovery and traditional search.

This dashboard shows who leads visibility, how positions are changing week to week, and where brands are gaining or losing ground across the travel market.

Each tab provides a distinct view of performance, change and opportunity.

AI Search

Understand how airlines and travel brands appear across AI-generated answers and conversational discovery.

Explore:

Most cited travel sites across AI responses
Brand mention share showing which airlines dominate AI visibility
Site presence rankings with movement and WoW change indicators
“New” entries highlighting brands newly appearing in AI results
Brand mention distribution across the competitive landscape
Brand mention distribution by category (e.g. long haul flights, city breaks, business travel, budget airlines)
Brand sentiment across AI-generated answers

This helps you understand how travel brands are represented in AI-driven conversations, which publishers influence visibility, and where airlines are being included or excluded from travel planning journeys.

Traditional Search

Analyse travel market leaders across Google search using detailed visibility and ranking data.

Explore:

Flights and airlines leaderboards showing Share of Voice and weekly movement
“New” entries highlighting brands entering the top search results
Most gained and most conceded visibility over time
Category-level breakdowns across key travel segments
Search demand trends showing peaks, declines and seasonality
SERP feature ownership across AI Overviews, video, maps and more

This shows how search visibility translates into market leadership, highlighting where airlines and travel brands are gaining ground and where opportunities exist to increase share of voice.

UK / US Market Comparison

Switch between UK and US markets to compare flights and airlines market leaders, visibility trends and brand performance across regions.

Explore differences in search demand, competitive positioning and category-level performance to identify regional leaders and growth opportunities.

What airline industry statistics are included in this dashboard?

The flights and airlines dashboard includes airline industry statistics across AI search and traditional search, including:

Google search visibility data
AI citation insights from LLM platforms
Brand mentions and sentiment within AI-generated answers

These datasets highlight airline market leaders, publisher influence and brand performance across the UK and US.

How does Pi Datametrics identify airline market leaders?

Airline market leaders are identified based on visibility across traditional search results and AI-generated answers.

This includes share of voice, brand mentions, sentiment trends and presence across key SERP features and AI platforms.

What does “New” mean in the leaderboard?

The “New” label highlights airlines or travel platforms that have recently entered the top results for the first time in the latest reporting period.

This reflects increased visibility across search or AI results and helps identify emerging competitors and shifts in travel demand.

What is Share of Voice in the flights dashboard?

Share of Voice measures how visible an airline or travel platform is across a defined set of search queries.

It reflects how often a brand appears in search results relative to competitors, helping identify which brands dominate visibility.

How is AI search visibility measured?

AI visibility is based on how often airlines and travel platforms are cited, mentioned or recommended within AI-generated answers.

This includes tracking brand presence across conversational platforms and understanding how brands appear in travel planning journeys.

Does this dashboard include both UK and US flight data?

Yes. You can switch between UK and US markets within the dashboard to compare airline market leaders, visibility and performance across regions.

How often is the data updated?

The dataset is updated weekly to reflect changes in traditional search visibility, AI citations, brand mentions and sentiment signals across the travel sector.

Why is my brand not shown in the dashboard?

The dashboard displays a sample set of airlines and travel platforms.

Pi Datametrics tracks thousands of brands across traditional search and AI visibility.
Book a demo to explore the full dataset and see how your brand performs.

Flights and Airlines Intelligence Insights

Updated monthly using Pi’s Sector Intelligence data across AI and traditional search visibility. The dashboards are refreshed weekly, while monthly insights highlight the most significant shifts, emerging trends and visibility changes shaping the flights and airlines market. Explore the latest developments in travel discovery, airline visibility, booking behavior and comparison-led search trends across AI and traditional search. Previous monthly insights are archived below.

Month: May 2026

UK Market Insights

Skyscanner dominated UK flight search visibility during May, generating 23.5% share of voice and significantly outperforming EasyJet, Kayak and other travel brands. Flight discovery remains heavily concentrated around comparison and aggregation platforms.
Airline brands play a much stronger role in AI search than in traditional search. British Airways, easyJet and Ryanair generated the highest share of conversational brand mentions, showing that consumers still look to airlines directly when discussing travel options with AI platforms.
Traditional flight search journeys continue to be dominated by aggregators and comparison sites including Skyscanner, Kayak, Google Flights, Cheapflights and Expedia, creating a highly competitive environment for airlines seeking direct visibility.
AI search results show a different pattern. Airline brands account for a far greater share of mentions, suggesting conversational search may create new opportunities for carriers to influence travel discovery without relying solely on aggregator platforms.
British Airways generated the strongest share of AI brand mentions (11.28%), ahead of easyJet (9.42%) and Ryanair (8.11%), reinforcing the importance of established airline brands within conversational travel research.
The contrast between traditional search leaders and conversational leaders highlights a growing split in travel discovery. Aggregators dominate search visibility, while airlines remain central to AI-powered travel recommendations.

US Market Insights

Google, Expedia and Skyscanner generated the highest overall visibility across US flight searches during May, demonstrating the continued dominance of search engines and travel aggregators in flight discovery.
Airline brands dominate AI conversations far more than traditional search. American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines generated the highest share of conversational brand mentions across US travel-related searches.
Traditional search visibility remains fragmented across comparison sites, aggregators and publishers, while conversational search places greater emphasis on recognised airline brands and direct travel providers.
Reddit, NerdWallet and Points Guy generated significant AI search visibility, highlighting the growing influence of community-driven recommendations, loyalty content and travel advice within conversational discovery.
American Airlines (8.99%), Delta Air Lines (8.84%) and United Airlines (7.73%) led AI brand mentions, demonstrating that travellers continue to seek guidance from established carriers during conversational research journeys.
The data suggests airlines have a stronger opportunity to influence AI-driven travel discovery than traditional search results, where aggregators and intermediaries continue to control much of the visibility.

Want to know how your brand performs?

Explore how your brand ranks across traditional search, AI visibility and brand health signals within the airline sector, alongside your key competitors inside the Pi platform.

Book a demo to see your data

Airline industry reports and market analysis

Alongside live airline industry statistics and airline market analysis, we publish detailed airline industry reports exploring demand trends, competitive positioning and AI search visibility. These reports provide structured insight into airline market trends and performance, helping brands, airlines and analysts understand the competitive landscape.
Explore all sector and market analysis reports →

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